Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)

LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Thursday next.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Derelict Land (Survey)

McBride: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what were the results of the first annual survey of derelict land in Wales carried out by local authorities in response to Circular 55/64 issued by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in September 1964.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office, (Mr. Goronwy Roberts): The survey showed that there were some 14,200 acres of derelict land in Wales at 31st December, 1964. Of this 8,300 acres were considered by the local authorities to justify treatment. I shall, with permission, circulate a summary of the results in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. McBride: Will my hon. Friend, as an outcome of this valuable report, take every step to arrest the spread of land dereliction? In this connection, to what extent has the reimbursement of local authorities which assist in the work been considered?

Mr. Roberts: Every effort has been made to encourage local authorities to step up action in this matter. My hon.

Friend and the House will see from the figures to be published in the OFFICIAL REPORT that a good start has already been made. As regards the grant system, to which I understood my hon. Friend to refer, he will know that in the recent White Paper on Investment Incentives, it was stated that the grant will remain at 85 per cent., which we consider to be a sufficient inducement for local authorities to proceed.

Following are the figures for each county:


DERELICT LAND IN WALES AT 31ST DECEMBER, 1964


Counties (including County Boroughs)
Total acreage
Proportion of acreage justifying treatment
Acreage restored in 1964
Acreage proposed for restoration in 1965


Anglesey
124
124
—
—


Breconshire
270
250
11
—


Caernarvonshire
2,422
1,298
—
173


Cardiganshire
23
23
—
—


Carmarthenshire
764
442
3
61


Denbighshire
1,642
923
15
56


Flintshire
643
205
38
6


Glamorgan
2,560
2,125
177
62


Merionethshire
—
—
—
—


Monmouthshire
4,671
2,768
9
24


Montgomeryshire
30
—
—
—


Pembrokeshire
1,038
142
150
125


Radnorshire
4
4
2
—


Totals
14,191
8,304
405
507

Note: For the purposes of the circular, derelict land was defined as land so damaged by industrial or other development that it was incapable of beneficial use without treatment. As the intention of the survey was to identify the hard core of derelict land likely to be treated annually if dealt with by public bodies, local authorities were asked to exclude sites subject to planning conditions or other statutory arrangements for restoration or landscaping. Also excluded from the definition were sites on which development was still taking place, urban sites cleared as part of the programme of redevelopment and disused service installations which were largely subject to special statutory or other arrangements.

New Town (Mid Wales)

Mr. Gibson-Watt: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for a new town in Mid Wales.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. James Griffiths): I am at present considering the proposals on this subject


put forward by Economic Associates Ltd. and I am arranging for its report to be published as soon as possible. In the meantime, I propose to discuss the report with the Mid Wales Industrial Development Association. I have also asked the Welsh Economic Council to consider it at their next meeting. The Government's decisions will be made known in due course.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Will not the right hon. Gentleman admit that he has already had discussions with the Mid Wales Industrial Development Association on this and it was against the project? Is he not now the only man in Wales who considers this policy to be sensible, and will he, therefore, chuck it out of the window?

Mr. Griffiths: No, Sir. I have had discussions with the Mid Wales Industrial Development Association about the whole problem of Mid Wales, and it was not against this proposal. The Association is anxious, as I am, that we should supplement it by strengthening the economies of the existing towns. But this will be the first time that I have discussed with the Association the actual report presented to me on the proposal.

Aberdare-Hirwaun Area (Development)

Mr. Probert: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether, in the preparation of the Plan for Wales, he will ask the Welsh Planning Board to consider the Aberdare-Hirwaun area as one for possible industrial and urban expansion.

Mr. James Griffiths: Yes, Sir. With the completion later this year of the Heads of the Valleys Road and with the road improvements which I announced last November, this area will have good access both to the Midlands and to South-West Wales. Its labour resources should also help to make it attractive for further industrial development. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Welsh Planning Board will bear these advantages very much in mind.

Mr. Probert: I thank my right hon. Friend for that very encouraging reply, but will he consider also the possibility of this area as an effective counter-attraction to the possible conurbation now growing up in and around Cardiff and South Glamorganshire?

Mr. Griffiths: I am deeply concerned about the future of the Valleys. I attach great importance to the completion of the Heads of the Valleys Road to Hirwaun and its extension beyond that to South-West Wales. I hope that this will make the Valleys much more attractive because their communications will be so much improved.

Transport Integration (Panel)

Mr. Probert: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if the Welsh Economic Council will institute a study of the question of the integration of transport facilities in Wales.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: At the request of the Minister of Transport, the Welsh Economic Council has appointed a panel to make a pilot study of this question. I am glad to say that Sir Miles Thomas has agreed to be Chairman of this Panel.

Mr. Probert: Would my hon. Friend consider, as a step forward, calling together all those local authorities which have public passenger transport systems to consider possible integration if it is desirable in the public interest?

Mr. Roberts: I have no doubt that the panel, under the chairmanship of Sir Miles Thomas, will regard the point put by my hon. Friend as very pertinent.

Mr. Thorneycroft: Will the Minister of State also remember, on the question of the integration of transport, that the Government are taking great steps to drive the private hauliers out of business in Wales and that if we want a transport service we must preserve them?

Mr. Roberts: The Question referred to the integration of an efficient transport service. The Panel will be composed of experts under the chairmanship of an acknowledged expert and will report directly to the Secretary of State on all matters related to such a service. The party political points made by the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) will not, I hope, enter into the Panel's deliberations.

Local Government

Mr. Thorneycroft: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made in the discussions on the


future of local government in Wales and Monmouthshire.

Mr. James Griffiths: The Inter-Departmental Working Party which is working on this has prepared first drafts of alternative models for reorganisation which it is at present discussing with informal advisers drawn from the local government world. When the Working Party has completed its consultations and reported to me, I shall have further consultations with the local authority associations and will set out my proposals in a White Paper.

Road Programme

Mr. Thorneycroft: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give an account of the effect of recent Government decisions on the state of the road programme in Wales and Mon mouthshire.

Mr. James Griffiths: The deferment measures announced last year will result in a reduction in Exchequer expenditure of about £200,000 in the current financial year and £400,000 in 1966–67. These reductions are small in relation to the total expenditure of nearly £23 million in the two years.

Mr. Thorneycroft: Is the Secretary of State aware that the cutting down of the road programme in Wales is regarded very seriously by those who have the interests of the Principality at heart? We have noticed the predisposition of the Minister of Transport for the United Kingdom to make increases in the road programmes where by-elections are going on. Is it necessary to have by-elections in Wales in order to achieve this end?

Mr. Griffiths: Elections seem to take care of themselves in Wales. The fact is that the proportionate reduction in Wales was very much smaller because, following their policy, the Government announced that the cuts would not apply to development areas—and large portions of the Principality are development areas.

Rent Officers

Mr. McBride: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many rent officers have been appointed in Wales under the

Rent Act 1965; and if he will make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Harold Finch): Twenty-two rent officers have been appointed and one vacancy remains to be filled. Nine of the twenty-three appointments will be part-time. My right hon. Friend intends to bring Part II of the Rent Act, 1965, into operation in Wales on 14th March, 1966.

Mr. McBride: My hon. Friend's reply shows great progress, but is he aware that unscrupulous landlords are seeking, quite illegally and outside the scope of the Rent Act, to impose increases on tenants? Will he finally ensure that every possible method of bringing home to the tenant his full rights under the Act is made available to him?

Mr. Finch: I assure my hon. Friend that when the Rent Act comes into operation it will remove some of the anomalies and injustices existing at present. A booklet has been issued to explain the Act, and this will be known to the people of Wales as elsewhere in the country.

Resolven Trunk Road

Mr. Coleman: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made on the repair to the slip on the trunk road at Resolven.

Mr. Finch: It is expected to open the road to traffic in about a month's time.

Mr. Coleman: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Is he aware that constituents of mine who have a great deal of apprehension about the continued use of this road by very heavy traffic will welcome the reply?

Mr. Arthur Pearson: May I urge my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to ask the road authorities to keep a close watch on the wear and tear of diversionary roads used as a consequence of closing main roads in order that the pot-holes may be filled up rapidly, for these can be a constant danger?

Mr. Finch: Yes, Sir. I will draw the attention of the road engineers to that point.

Water Undertakings

Mr. T. W. Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what progress is being made with the amalgamation of water undertakings in Wales.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: When the first circular on regrouping was issued in 1956, the number of water undertakings in Wales was 146. By 1st April next they will have been reduced to 57.

Mr. Jones: Is my hon. Friend aware that, paradoxically enough, water is a burning question and that his reply will give great satisfaction in the Principality?

Arts in Wales (Report)

J. Idwal Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he has received the Council for Wales' Report on the Arts in Wales; and when he will publish it.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Yes, Sir; and my right hon. Friend is arranging for it to be published next month.

Mr. Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for the decision to publish the Report, which we look forward to reading. Can he say whether it includes recommendations to encourage local drama and music societies in the Principality?

Mr. Roberts: I cannot anticipate publication of the Report, but I think it is generally known that the inquiry extended to the need to encourage in every way local and regional artistic and cultural activity. I think that my hon. Friend's point is well taken.

Housing (Completed Dwellings)

Mr. J. Idwal Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many dwellings are likely to be built this year in Wales; and what the housing programme is likely to be in the next five years.

Mr. Finch: Over 20,000 this year, and it is intended to increase this steadily to about 22,500 a year by 1970.

Mr. Thorneycroft: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's policy of procuring a shortage of houses and a surplus of bricks at the same time in Wales is causing some concern?

Mr. Finch: Whatever concern the right hon. Gentleman may feel, the fact is that the housing position has improved in Wales during the period of office of my right hon. Friend.

Llandudno Junction Flyover

Mr. Peter Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Wales when constructional works on the Llandudno Junction flyover will commence; and when the scheme will be completed.

Mr. James Griffiths: I hope to let the contract in April and the work should be completed early in 1968.

Mr. Thomas: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his reply. Is he aware that I shall reserve further questioning on this matter until we find out whether the promise contained in his reply materialises?

Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate the right hon. and learned Gentleman's reserve.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Teaching Aids (Immigrants)

Mr. Park: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what efforts he is making to meet the demand for specialised teaching aids for immigrant schoolchildren.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell): The provision of teaching aids is primarily a matter for local education authorities. Circular 7/65 called attention to the need for increased provision of books and equipment for immigrant children, and the Department is doing what it can to encourage the production of suitable material.

Mr. Park: Is my hon. Friend aware that in parts of the country where there is considerable concentration of non-English-speaking children teachers have produced special reading texts and other aids which are proving of immense value? Will he consider making the facilities of his Department available for the convening of teachers' conferences or using the services of the inspectorate to ensure that knowledge of these aids can be more widely disseminated?

Mr. Howell: Both these courses of action are much in our minds. The Schools Council is doing a preliminary investigation into the question of aids in the teaching of immigrants, and we are very anxious to further this work.

School-Building Programme

Mr. Hornby: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what allowance he makes for regional differences in building costs when allocating capital sums for the School-building programme.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Edward Redhead): None, Sir.

Mr. Hornby: Is the Minister of State aware that the ability of authorities to get the necessary work done in the building of schools is affected considerably by the cost of each building? Will he look at this again, particularly at the suggestion he made in correspondence with me—that the South-East is not a high-cost building area? Is he further aware that that statement was viewed with amazement by people in the area?

Mr. Redhead: Local variations in cost limits would not only be difficult to calculate, because evaluation of the factors making for high or low costs would be complicated and open to question, but would run into practical difficulties, as areas where quotations are high are usually local pockets within a local authority area. I am afraid that, on investigation, we have not found the hon. Gentleman's suggestion a practicable one to follow.

Mr. Hornby: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what sum he proposes to make available in 1967–68 for major School-building works in Kent.

Mr. Redhead: My right hon. Friend has made £1,479,000 available for the first part of 1967–68. He will decide the rest of the year's programme when he has considered the authority's proposals, which he will be inviting shortly.

Mr. Hornby: When looking at the second half of his proposals, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the very big problems facing local authorities where there has been a substantial influx of population? In particular, will he consider

how difficult it is for authorities like Kent to catch up with the problems of improving existing school buildings as well as building new?

Mr. Redhead: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that he and other hon. Members, as well as the Kent Education Authority, have made representations about Kent in this respect. I can only repeat what my right hon. Friend has already said in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on 10th February—that those representations will be borne in mind when my right hon. Friend considers the next round of the building programme.

Mr. Murray: Would my hon. Friend say whether his right hon. Friend is to give any priority to authorities which have submitted schemes in accordance with Circular 10/65?

Mr. Redhead: The contents of Circular 10/65, to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention, make it clear that in present circumstances no special provision can be made solely on the ground of going comprehensive.

Sir E. Boyle: Has not the Secretary of State stated explicitly in the House that where there is already a sufficiency of secondary accommodation, from the point of view of numbers, comprehensive proposals are not to have priority over primary school improvements?

Mr. Redhead: That is the implication of what I have just said by reference to the Circular.

Secondary Education (Circular)

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science which local education authorities so far have requested an extension of time in which to submit their proposals for the reorganisation of secondary education in response to Circular 10/65; and what answers he has given.

Mr. Redhead: Requests have so far been received from twelve local education authorities. In six cases (Lincolnshire (Kesteven), Dudley, Smethwick, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton and Walsall) limited extensions have been agreed. All these authorities are involved in the reorganisation of boundaries. Five authorities (Burton-on-Trent, Bromley,


Kent, Norfolk and Shropshire) have been asked to press ahead as quickly as they can and to re-apply for an extension nearer the final date if they are then still in difficulty. The request of the remaining authority (Oxfordshire) is being considered.

Mr. Hill: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that if local education authorities feel unable to make any useful plan until more is known about the age of transfer in future after Plowden has reported and, for that matter, until more is known about the future building programmes and the future reorganisation of local government itself, they are under no obligation to submit a proposal by July and that, strictly speaking, although they may request an extension, they need not do so?

Mr. Redhead: The considerations to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention would not of themselves justify an application for an extension, but my right hon. Friend will be prepared to consider representations from any authority which for exceptional reasons finds itself unable to meet the target date.

Mr. Park: Is my hon. Friend aware that the reorganisation of secondary education in 1944 was carried out by legislation? While it is preferable to proceed by agreement in this case where-ever possible, will he make it clear that he will not hesitate to introduce legislation if the negative and obstructionist tactics of some Tory-dominated education authorities make it necessary?

Mr. Redhead: The view of Her Majesty's Government is that this is an urgent reform which should be undertaken at the earliest possible time. It is our belief that the great majority of local education authorities share this view, and we hope, from their response to date, that persuasion will suffice to achieve the purpose.

Sir E. Boyle: Returning to my hon. Friend's very well phrased supplementary question, is it not clear that as the law stands at present there is no power to compel an authority to send a particular reply to this circular or to comply with it? Whatever our views of the merits of the question, is it not very important that the present legal position of the

Ministry and of the local authorities should be made quite plain?

Mr. Redhead: I am sure that local authorities would not defy what has been the normal tradition of observing circulars on Government policy and requests made to them to conform to that policy. Nevertheless, it is true that there is no absolute statutory power to enforce some part of that circular, except in so far as an application is required under Section 13.

School-Leaving Dates

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what consideration he is giving to the desirability of having a single school-leaving date each year.

Mr. Redhead: The reason for the adoption in 1962 of two leaving dates rather than one are in my view still valid.

Mr. Hill: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that to move on from the advantages shown by having two leaving dates to only one in a year would greatly assist the efficient running of the schools, particularly when the school-leaving age comes to be raised? Therefore, would he not consult his colleague the Minister of Labour and such bodies as the Youth Employment Service at least to have an up-to-date feasibility study for having a single school-leaving date in future?

Mr. Redhead: The hon. Gentleman will recognise that the reduction of the number of leaving dates from three to two in the Education Act, 1962, represented a compromise as between education and employment considerations. It is perfectly true that education authorities were unanimously in favour of one common leaving date, but this was found not to be acceptable to employers. A single leaving date would undoubtedly create difficulties about finding employment for school leavers, especially those most in need of help. Industry would be faced with absorbing the whole year's intake at one time and, as at present advised, I am afraid that this appears to be a substantial difficulty.

Mr. H. Hynd: While the interests of the schools may be important, are not the interests of the pupils more important?

Mr. Redhead: That is true, but one must also have regard to their interests as school leavers and being placed in employment with the utmost expedition.

New Schools (Yorkshire and Humberside)

Mr. Duffy: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the public expenditure on new schools in Yorkshire and Humberside for 1964–65; and what percentage this represents of the total for the United Kingdom.

Mr. Redhead: Figures for the total expenditure on new schools are not available. The value of building work carried out on major schools projects in the region was £9·2 million, which represents 12·6 per cent. of the total for England and Wales.

Mr. Duffy: Does my hon. Friend think that that total is sufficient in view of the backlog of inadequate school buildings which now exists in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where in the Colne Valley, for example, more than three-quarters of the primary schools were built in the nineteenth century and more than half are dependent on an outside lavatory, and where one school had to be evacuated a week ago because rocks fell from an overhanging cliff in to the playground?

Mr. Redhead: Unhappily, there is a legacy of neglect in respect of school buildings all over the country, which the Government are seeking to overcome as rapidly as may be, but regard has to be paid to the most urgent and pressing demands in assessing the requirements.

Sir E. Boyle: In view of what the hon. Gentleman has just said, is it not a fact that the previous Government approved approximately £2 million worth of school improvements in the West Riding compared with the present Government's intention to spend no more money on school improvements, except for projects needed for the raising of the school-leaving age?

Mr. Redhead: The right hon. Gentleman should await events. The future programme is not yet determined.

London Orchestras (Grants)

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will now take action to implement the proposals in the Goodman Re port on London orchestras.

The Joint Under-Secretary of Stale for Education and Science (Miss Jennie Lee): The Arts Council and the Greater London Council have now set up the London Orchestral Concert Board to carry out the functions recommended by the Goodman Committee. They will jointly be making available to the Board such funds as are required for the subsidising of concerts approved by the Board and for the payment of annual grants to the four orchestras. The initial grant to each of the orchestras will be £30,000 a year.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I thank the hon. Lady for that most encouraging reply. Is she aware that music lovers throughout Britain, including my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), will be most grateful to her for this? Will she allow me to say that it is clear now that her beauty is matched only by her generosity?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Miss Lee: We have a crude saying in Scotland—"The proof of the pudding is the eating of it"—and the beauty of these proposals rests with the entire Government. It is not a matter of individual caprice.

Universities (Exchequer Rate Payments)

Mr. Woodhouse: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the cost of the rate payments met by the Exchequer, through the University Grants Committee, in respect of each of the universities and university institutions listed in the First Schedule to the Rating and Valuation Act, 1961, for each complete financial year since the Act came into force.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): Exchequer grants in respect of rate payments by these institutions totalled about £2·4 million in 1963–64 and £2·6 million in 1964–65. With permission, I will circulate details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Woodhouse: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Can he tell me whether the figures which he has quoted and is circulating cover the total rate liability of these institutions or only the increased rate liability which has arisen since the 1961 Act?

Mr. Prentice: The figures give the rate payments met from Exchequer funds in 1963–64, 1964–65, as asked in the Question.

RATING AND VALUATION ACT 1961 FIRST SCHEDULE


RATE PAYMENTS MET FROM EXCHEQUER FUNDS



1963–64
1964–65


£
£


Birmingham
146,103
162,057


Bristol
105,192
122,078


Cambridge
141,437
144,634


Durham (including Newcastle)
156,454
188,746


Exeter
52,142
42,219


Hull
30,677
36,766


Keele (University College of North Staffordshire)
24,170
26,585


Leeds
108,399
121,474


Leicester
52,169
43,603


Liverpool
105,778
117,343


London
758,741
902,330


Manchester College of Science and Technology
61,927
44,120


Manchester
121,581
171,733


Nottingham
96,940
83,455


Oxford
89,076
101,702


Reading
40,569
35,961


Sheffield
66,283
86,389


Southampton
61,067
44,635


Wales
148,925
153,243


Total
£2,367,630
£2,629,073

Manchester Comprehensive Schools (Headships)

Mr. Frank: Taylor asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he is aware that the heads of Manchester's comprehensive schools will be appointed from people who believe in the system; what is his policy on this situation; and what steps he intends to take.

Mr. Redhead: No, Sir. The Manchester Authority has recently stated that it will follow normal practice in making appointments to new comprehensive schools.

Mr. Taylor: Is the Minister not aware that in my constituency two or three weeks ago the Chairman of the Manchester Education Committee stated quite categorically that headmasters' positions in comprehensive schools would be given

to those who are in favour of the system? This was reported in the Daily Telegraph of 15th February and the statement was reiterated after a further interview with the head of the Education Department. Will the Minister say whether he and the Government approve of this?

Mr. Redhead: I am aware that certain views have been attributed to the Chairman of the Education Committee, but the statement by the authority is quite clear that the factors to be taken into account are the candidate's qualifications, experience and personal and professional suitability for the post in question. In response to the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I would say that discriminatory action against teachers because of their views on educational matters would be, to our mind, intolerable. I am confident that we can rely on the good sense and fairness of the authorities in making appointments to schools of all kinds.

Sir E. Boyle: While the hon. Gentleman's Answer will give some relief, would he not agree that it is of high importance that education committee chairmen, and others, should exercise restraint in public debate on this sort of issue in view of the very great importance of attracting more graduates to secondary schools? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a graduate, uncertain whether to go to this authority or to some other, might well be deterred by some of the remarks attributed to the chairman of this education committee?

Mr. Redhead: I am sure that the answers I have already given will be noted in all appropriate quarters.

Medical Students

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is aware that no instruction in contraceptive methods is given to students at medical schools and that students are, in the main, left to pick up what information they can in order to meet the needs of their patients; and whether he will take steps to ensure that medical schools give students specific instruction in this matter.

Mr. Prentice: No, Sir. I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to his


Question on this topic on 13th December last.

Mr. Shepherd: In view of the importance of this subject, why is it that the hon. Gentleman refuses to take any action? Is he telling the House that he is going to pay out these very large sums of money yet have no control whatever over the efficiency of the instruction?

Mr. Prentice: No, it does not go as far as that. The position regarding these schools was laid down in the Medical Act of 1956, introduced by hon. Members opposite, with the support of all parties. It laid a general responsibility on the General Medical Council for the standards of those entering the profession and left it to the universities to decide matters of curriculum. The universities obviously bear in mind the standards laid down by the G.M.C. This system does not allow Ministers of the Crown to tell the universities what should be in the curriculum of each medical school.

Immigrants

Mr. Freeson: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many children classified as immigrant are in the total school population.

Mr. Howell: This information is not at present available, but statistics are now being collected and results will be available later in the year.

Mr. Freeson: Is it not true that the statistics now being collected from the schools include statistics of children who are not immigrants, but born in this country? Would he tell the House the reason for this?

Mr. Howell: We have on many occasions endeavoured, in reply to Questions of my hon. Friend, to define what an immigrant is for educational purposes. I cannot go into all of that again. The statistics being collected in respect of January of this year relate to immigrants as previously defined.

School-Leaving Age (Extensions)

Mr. Duffy: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of pupils remained at school beyond the statutory leaving age in maintained schools in the Yorkshire East and

West Ridings in 1963 and 1964; and what were the comparable figures for the metropolitan, southern and south-eastern regions.

Mr. Redhead: 34 per cent. and 31 per cent. in 1963 and 1964, respectively.
The comparable percentages were 42 and 39 in the eastern, 54 and 53 in the metropolitan and 52 and 49 in the south-eastern regions. The apparent fall in the proportions staying at schools was due to the abolition in 1963 of the Christmas leaving date for 15 year olds. Whereas in 1963 all 15 year olds were regarded as staying on at school voluntarily, in 1964 only those born between 1st January and 1st September could be so regarded.

Mr. Duffy: Is the Minister aware that his Answer will be read in Yorkshire with the gravest disquiet? Will he say what proposals he has for redressing this situation?

Mr. Redhead: I am sure that the local education authorities concerned in the region to which my hon. Friend has referred have an equal concern, and my Department will be glad to know what proposals they have to meet the situation.

Hotham School, Putney (Nursery Class)

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is aware that his restrictions are preventing the establishment of a nursery class at Hotham School, Putney, and that the absence of such a class is preventing the return of a number of married women to teaching; and whether he will lift these restrictions.

Mr. Redhead: My right hon. Friend has not received any representations about establishing a nursery class at this school. It is our policy to encourage the establishment of nursery classes where suitable accommodation exists, and where this would enable married women to return to teaching. The Department is discussing with the Inner London Education Authority in what way it may be possible to expand their nursery schools provision for this purpose.

Mr. Jenkins: Is my hon. Friend aware that this reply will be received with great interest, and I am pretty sure that an


application will be before him soon at which I hope he will look with favour?

Mr. Redhead: Any proposals will most certainly be carefully considered.

Education Costs

Mr. Leadbitter: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the estimated national percentage increase in the costs of education between 1960 and 1966; to what extent Government grants have been calculated to meet this increase; and if he will make a statement on his proposals for relieving ratepayers of their increasing share of the costs.

Mr. Redhead: Total education expenditure in England and Wales, excluding that on school meals and milk, is expected to go up by approximately 92 per cent. between 1960 and 1966; the greater part of this expenditure is incurred by local authorities, whose assistance from the Government is received mainly through the general grant which has been adjusted, under the Local Government Act, 1958, to take account both of developments of the education service and rising costs; expenditure on the education service has been taken into account in the Government's examination of local government finance and they are about to announce their conclusions.

Mr. Leadbitter: Would the Minister not agree that at this stage the present rate system which supports a considerable share of this increasing expenditure is regressive and in need of urgent re-examination? Following up what he has said about his statement, would he call for an interim report from the unit—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Questions are getting too long. I think that that is enough to answer.

Mr. Redhead: My hon. Friend must not misunderstand me. It is not my statement but the Government's announcement which is imminent. I would ask him to await that announcement, when I think that his Question will be satisfactorily answered.

Adult Education

Mrs. Shirley Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will review the basis on

which his Department grants aid to residential adult education colleges, with a view to bringing the proportion of grant they receive from public funds into line with that offered to other comparable institutions in the field of higher and further education.

Mr. Prentice: The five residential adult education colleges aided by the Department are unique, and the arrangements for grant reflect their circumstances. If these change, and the colleges wish to review the grant arrangements, my right hon. Friend will consider any representations they make.

Mrs. Williams: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him to consider the rather low grant arrangements for these colleges in view of their importance to a large section of the community which has not had the chance to take advantage of the opportunities now available to a younger generation in higher and further education?

Mr. Prentice: It is difficult to make exact comparisons between these colleges and their circumstances and other parts of the further and higher education system. My right hon. Friend has not had any representations from the Committee representing the five colleges. He would, of course, consider any such representations.

Sir E. Boyle: Is the Minister aware that these colleges are about to be considerably enlarged through building programmes that have been approved? May I ask him to bear this point very much in mind, because in these circumstances there might be a strong case for looking at the provisions of the 1962 Act which applies to them?

Mr. Prentice: To some limited extent this point is being met in relation to the new building programme. The Exchequer is meeting 50 per cent. of the cost of the new programmes. Normally 40 per cent. of normal maintenance costs and so on are met.

School Meals Service

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has for improving the school meals service.

Mr. Redhead: I refer my hon. Friend to the Department's Circular 3/66 to local education authorities and to the Report of the Working Party on the Nutritional Standard of the School Dinner published on the 26th January, copies of which I am sending to my hon. Friend.

Mrs. Short: I thank my hon. Friend. I have seen that circular. Would he accept that there are two main problems: first, too much stodge and therefore too many overweight schoolchildren, and, secondly, too many old, ill-equipped school kitchens left as a legacy by the previous Government? Will my hon. Friend therefore take steps to provide enough money to improve the situation and make sure that school cooks take refresher courses to improve their standards?

Mr. Redhead: I am sure that mature consideration of the Report to which I have referred will lead to an easement of the problems about which my hon. Friend has spoken. If she has studied that document, she will realise that the objective in following its recommendations is to increase the variety and nutritional value of school meals.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that, if he has sampled school meals, as I have, they are astonishingly good value and that he would do better to consider charging rather more—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—since he told me last week that an extra 3d. would result in no falling off of consumption and would provide him with £8½ million which would enable him to restore the whole of the mini-minor programme and other building cuts, much to the relief of the schools, teachers and delighted parents?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary questions are getting too long.

Mr. Redhead: I am sure that the country will be glad to note the hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

Art Galleries

Mr. Alfred Morris: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received from the North-West Regional Economic Planning Council concerning financial

assistance and national status for art galleries in the region; what replies he has sent; and if he will make a statement.

Miss Lee: I have received a letter from the Economic Planning Council for the North-West Region which refers to the prospects of financial assistance from the Government for the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, as well as to other matters affecting the Arts in the North-West. The Walker Gallery, like all other Regional and Municipal Galleries, does not qualify for an Arts Council grant and is not in receipt of direct exchequer assistance. I have this whole field now under review, as I am concerned to ensure a fair distribution of public funds between London and regional activities in the promotion of the Arts generally.

Mr. Morris: I thank my hon. Friend for her reply. Would she agree that the Board's letter should have followed consultations with all the art galleries concerned, including Manchester? This appears not to have been done and has excited very strong feeling. Can she say anything about helping the arts more generally, for example, the Hallé Orchestra, in the Manchester area?

Miss Lee: I cannot add to what I have said, that I am most concerned that there should be fair play between the regions and London and that this whole matter is now under review.

The Arts

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make a statement on future financial support for the arts.

Miss Lee: The Vote on Account which was published yesterday shows that the proposed figure for the Vote "The Arts Council and other grants for the Arts" is £6,070,000. The total of grants for museums and galleries is £5,845,000.
The detailed Estimates will be published next month.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Is my hon. Friend aware that the figures and statements which have appeared in the Press have been received with a great deal of enthusiasm? Can she say whether the provinces will receive a fair share of the distribution?

Miss Lee: Most certainly. In this first year we have been most anxious to make quite clear that there is no reduction in our artistic standards. Our national institutions are being sustained to the best of our ability. But we are well aware that in many parts of the country there is considerable regional feeling that more attention should be paid to their needs.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: While welcoming what the hon. Lady has said, may I ask her whether she will try to publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT as much information as she can about allocations? Can she tell us what her proposals are for the South Bank opera site and whether the sum suggested by the Publishers' Association is included in the overall figure?

Miss Lee: Perhaps it would be more helpful to wait until the Greater London Council has announced its decision in regard to the South Bank opera site. The Government are firmly committed to fifty-fifty support for the National Theatre, but the problem of whether an opera house should be added rests with the G.L.C.

Mr. Robert Cooke: How much of this new money will find its way into new theatre building in the provinces? How much of it will go to museums, particularly the museum of British Transport?

Miss Lee: The sum set aside for building for the arts is being doubled. It was £250,000 last year. It will be £500,000 next year. Of course, we will ensure that there is fair play. The question of the Museum of British Transport does not rest with me. The hon. Gentleman should address his question on that matter to the appropriate Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA (FAMINE RELIEF)

Mr. Brewis: asked the Prime Minister what aid will be given to India to assist famine relief; and what contribution will be made by British agriculture.

The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. George Brown): I have been asked to reply.
As my right hon. Friend said on 17th February, we have already made available

able an immediate and interim loan of £ 7½ million for this purpose, and this has been warmly welcomed by the Indian Government. As far as supplies of British produced food are concerned, while we do not, of course, produce many items surplus to our own requirements, we are in touch with the Indian Government about those things which we could make available if they want them.

Mr. Brewis: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. Are the Government sufficiently conscious that this famine may be one of the great tragedies of this century? Would he say whether by increased aid he can improve relations with India, which are not very good at present?

Mr. Brown: I am sure that the whole House will share the hon. Gentleman's great concern about this matter. What we can do we will do. We are in touch with the Indian Government. We made an immediate gesture in this direction which they welcomed. We are still discussing with them what we can do.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to the fact that there is a surplus of pilchards in Cornwall which has been offered for this purpose? Will he look into the matter to see whether it can be used?

Mr. Brown: My attention has only just been drawn to that matter, but I will ensure that it is considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (STATEMENT)

Mr. Blaker: asked the Prime Minister whether the public statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in London on 5th January, 1966, on holidays abroad and the balance of payments represents Government policy.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend answered this Question on 17th February.

Mr. Blaker: If the Government wish to encourage our own people to spend their holidays in Britain and foreigners to come here, how can they possibly justify proposals which deprive the hotel and catering industry of investment grants while giving such grants to the manufacturers of one-armed bandits?

Mr. Brown: That is a totally different question. If the hon. Gentleman would like to table it, I will provide him with a satisfactory answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Mrs. Shirley Williams: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of Mr. Kosygin's message to the Geneva Disarmament Conference concerning guarantees to non-nuclear countries, he will initiate discussions at Geneva with the Governments of India, the Soviet Union and the United States of America to obtain a nuclear guarantee for India, thus averting further proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
We expect that the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee at Geneva will discuss the question of assurances to non-nuclear States against nuclear threats and blackmail. This is not merely a question of a nuclear guarantee for India, but concerns all non-nuclear States.

Mrs. Williams: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that Answer, may I ask him whether he will agree that the solution of this problem depends on the willingness of nuclear Powers like Britain to accept some reduction in their stocks of nuclear weapons in order to get non-nuclear powers to agree?

Mr. Brown: That is a consideration, but there are many others. We hope very much, as my hon. Friend knows, that we shall be able to ensure that much greater importance is attached to the question of non-proliferation, and the terms on which one can persuade non-nuclear States that they are adequately guaranteed is a great part of that consideration.

Mr. Heath: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he appears to be using the term "nuclear guarantee" in two different senses? When Mr. Kosygin used it, it was in connection with the proposal that nuclear Powers should never undertake to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear States, whereas the sense in which the right hon. Gentleman has been using it is that defence of a nuclear kind would be provided for non-nuclear Powers against attack. Could

the right hon. Gentleman clarify which position he is taking up?

Mr. Brown: The latter point in the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, which I well understand, was not what I had in mind. But there is more to this question than appears on the surface of Mr. Kosygin's message, although we welcome very much the change in that from his previous position and we are studying it with interest. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, there are many considerations to be taken into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIRCRAFT FLIGHTS (NUCLEAR WEAPONS)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will give an assurance that no aircraft carrying nuclear bombs, armed or unarmed, are allowed to overfly any part of Great Britain at any time, in view of recent happenings off the Spanish coast.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: asked the Prime Minister if he will issue an instruction that no aircraft are to fly over the United Kingdom carrying nuclear weapons.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
No, Sir. No new factor has emerged as a result of the recent crash in Spain which would justify any change in the existing arrangements whereby, under strict precautions, certain flights of this kind are carried out over the United Kingdom.

Mr. Hamilton: Does not my right hon. Friend think that the British people are entitled to much more information than they are currently getting? Is he aware that there is a good deal of concern in this country and others as a result of this recent episode off Spain? Will he consider publishing in the OFFICIAL REPORT much more information than we have had hitherto?

Mr. Brown: I do not think we should do that, for obvious reasons. While the Government must have the utmost information, and while our people must be satisfied that that is so, there is a very strict limit on what it is possible to publish, for I think very obvious reasons. All of us have said in the past, under previous Administrations as well as our


Administration, that we think that the situation is adequately provided for by our present procedures.

Mr. Jenkins: As General Franco has belatedly given the Spanish people immunity from this great risk, is not my right hon. Friend prepared to do the same for the British people?

Mr. Brown: There are many ways in which I have no desire to follow General Franco.

Oral Answers to Questions — FIRST SECRETARY OF STATE (STATEMENTS)

Mr. Gibson-Watt: asked the Prime Minister whether the statements made by the First Secretary of State on 8th February in the Rediffusion programme Crunch, about economic affairs, represent the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Ramsden: asked the Prime Minister whether the statements on economic policy made by the First Secretary of State on 8th February, 1966, in the Rediffusion programme, Crunch, represent the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Bryan: asked the Prime Minister if the statements of the First Secretary of State on economic matters on 8th February in the television programme, Crunch, represent Government policy.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the Prime Minister whether the statements made by the First Secretary of State in the Rediffusion programme entitled Crunch, on 8th February, 1966, about incomes policy, represent the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: asked the Prime Minister whether the statements about the- nation's economic and financial problems made by the First Secretary of State on 8th February in the Rediffusion programme, Crunch, represent the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that in this programme he himself said that he was impressed by the impact that his policy was having on production, incomes and prices? Can he tell us what impact his policy has had on production, particularly in view of what his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour said the other day when he described production as stagnant?

Mr. Brown: If he did, I must have a word with him. [Laughter.] If he did not, I will have a word with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ramsden: How does the First Secretary assess the impact of his policies on incomes in particular, bearing in mind that in some sectors they seem to have gone up very rapidly as compared with prices?

Mr. Brown: We have been through all this before, every time I appear at this Box. It is time that the right hon. Gentleman got hold of the point that one must look at the successes as well as those cases which do not seem to be succeeding quite so well. Only the other day, the electricity power workers accepted a settlement at the norm and said that they were doing it because they wanted to accept their responsibility under the policy. Only a little while before that, Vauxhall Motors and the unions there came to an agreement at the norm and specifically said that they were doing it because they wanted to uphold the policy. There are many cases where it is having impact.

Mr. Bryan: As incomes have in general increased five times as fast as production, is not the impact of the right hon. Gentleman's policy the popular one of more money for less work?

Mr. Brown: I at least am trying to bring the increase in incomes—all incomes, directors' fees as well as other kinds of incomes—into line with the increase in productivity. I would welcome the hon. Member's help.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has said that productivity is indeed the crucial figure. Does he not agree that in 1964 the working population actually increased while production remained stagnant? How can


he say that his policy has had an impact when productivity has, in fact, declined?

Mr. Brown: It is a little late for the hon. Member to be defending the record of 1964. He had better look at 1966.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: As the right hon. Gentleman said in the programme in question that those employed in industries of rising productivity should get more than the norm, and as he also said that workers in other industries were entitled to be brought up to the norm, is not this a formula for built-in inflation?

Mr. Brown: I am sorry that the hon. Baronet has got it wrong. I did not say either of the things which he suggests. If he will get this extra little production by Rediffusion, which produced the entire broadcast, and—as he has obviously got it—if he will read it, he will find that he has got it wrong.

Mr. Maxwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in spite of the fact that the Opposition are behaving so irresponsibly in this matter—[Interruption.]—the country is fully behind him? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is Question Time. I want to hear the questions.

Mr. Maxwell: Is my right hon. Friend further aware that the business community are 100 per cent. behind all his efforts and, further—

Mr. Speaker: No further. That is long enough.

Mr. Brown: From the 100 per cent., we must apparently exclude the Chairman of I.C.I. Otherwise, I gather, we are getting very near that. The real point, however, is not what I am aware of. It is that the country is aware of the irresponsibility of those on the benches opposite.

Mr. Heath: As the First Secretary has told us again today that he is rightly proud of the success of his policy—and we understand his pride—can he explain to the House why later today he is introducing an "early warnings" Bill? Can he also tell us whether the name of his right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology will also be backing the Bill?

Mr. Brown: It does not look to me as; though either of those points arises

on this Question. The answer to both of them will be given in due course. In the meantime, may I say again to the right hon. Gentleman that I do not want to keep the pride to myself and that I would be only too happy to share a little of it with him.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR WARFARE (CIVIL DEFENCE)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister what steps he is taking to ensure better co-ordination between the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office in the production of pamphlets and leaflets concerning instructions to civilians in the event of nuclear attack on Great Britain.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
None, Sir. My right hon. Friend is satisfied with the existing arrangements.

Mr. Hamilton: He should not be. Has my right hon. Friend seen the film "The War Game"? Has he been one of the chosen few who have seen it? If he has, how can he reconcile the silly statements produced from official pamphlets and documents with the reality of what a nuclear war might be? If he has seen the film, will my right hon. Friend take steps either to modify the pamphlets or to withdraw them?

Mr. Brown: The answer to the first part of that question is that I will convey that observation to my right hon. Friend. The answer to the second part is that I have not seen the film. Therefore, the third part of the question does not arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILWAYS (PAY DISPUTE)

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the Prime Minister whether there is to be a further review shortly of railwaymen's pay, as a result of his discussions with the unions on 11th February.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
I have nothing to add to the Answers to similar Questions given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 17th February.

Mr. Campbell: Will the First Secretary be the Minister who presides at these


discussions, in view of his responsibility for policy on prices and incomes?

Mr. Brown: No, Sir. As the hon. Member and the House know, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has invited the unions and the Board in the first instance to a meeting under his chairmanship at No. 10, and clearly, therefore, he will be the chairman.

Mr. Heath: Can the First Secretary tell us why he himself did not make the same offer to the Executive of the N.U.R. which the Prime Minister made and thus obtain an earlier settlement of the dispute?

Mr. Brown: I am sorry, the right hon. Gentleman is wrong again. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already told the House, and I have said it and I repeat, that no offers were made that night that had not been made previously.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT BOARDS AND INQUIRIES (APPOINTMENTS)

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether he will publish in HANSARD a detailed list of all persons appointed by Her Majesty's Government to Boards, Government Committees, Inquiries, etc., since October 1964, on both a full-time and part-time basis, with the salaries and expenses received in each case.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
No, Sir. The information is not readily available and could not be obtained except at a disproportionate cost to public funds.

Mr. Lewis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many trade unionists on lower incomes are rather worried about the continued spate of people who are appointed to these various boards at as much as 18 guineas a day expenses on top of already-large incomes? Does he not feel that it would help to get an incomes policy if some of this information was available to show trade unionists that the Government are treating everyone alike fairly and properly?

Mr. Brown: I do not share my hon. Friend's concern, and I do not think that many people outside share it. If he

would consult the publications which we already issue—for example, Cmnd. 2848, issued in December 1965—he would find that a good deal of the information he wants is already printed.

Oral Answers to Questions — SENIOR NAVAL OFFICERS (RESIGNATIONS)

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Prime Minister how many senior naval officers have tendered their resignations in the last 10 days.

Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
As the House knows, the First Sea Lord has asked to be retired at once and his application has been accepted. No other senior officer has resigned.

Brigadier Clarke: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it extremely serious to have the First Sea Lord resigning and the Minister of Defence for the Navy resigning, and does he realise that if they had not resigned there would have been many more resignations in the Navy from people who have stayed on because of the security of the country and because they are decent people?

Mr. Brown: We regard this as a matter worthy of serious attention, and I would not dream of denigrating it by talking about "a little local difficulty" as a previous Prime Minister did. It is a serious matter, and the only bit of light relief that I can introduce into it is that I wonder if the hon. Gentleman might not think of resigning.

Mr. Lewis: Can my right hon. Friend assure us that these gentlemen will receive adequate pensions? In the Press this morning it is reported that they retire on pensions of full pay. Can we be assured that in fact they will get these full pensions?

Mr. Brown: We are only talking about one distinguished senior serving officer, and his pension rights have been wholly protected.

Captain Litchfield: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the retiring First Sea Lord has sacrificed his expectation of normal promotion to Admiral of the Fleet at an increased pension or, rather, half pay?

Mr. Brown: On the pension position, I have already answered that as being protected. I would need notice on the other part of the question.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side would be quite prepared to protect their pensions when they resign?

Mr. Brown: There is not the slightest chance of my being able to reciprocate to the hon. Gentleman, is there?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the proposed business of the House for next week?

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): Yes, Sir. The proposed business for next week is as follows:
MONDAY, 28TH FEBRUARY—Debate on Leasehold Reform, on a Government Motion to welcome the White Paper (Command No. 2916).
TUESDAY, 1ST MARCH—Debate on Economic Affairs, on a Government Motion.
WEDNESDAY, 2ND MARCH—Remaining stages of the Building Control Bill.
THURSDAY, 3RD MARCH—Second Reading of the Parliamentary Commissioner Bill.
FRIDAY, 4TH MARCH—Private Members' Motions.
MONDAY, 7TH MARCH, and TUESDAY, 8TH MARCH—The proposed business will be: Debate on Defence, on a Government Motion inviting the House to approve the White Papers (Command Nos. 2901 and 2902).

Mr. Heath: While thanking the Leader of the House for that prospectus, may I ask whether he could kindly tell the House when his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will introduce his fifth, more commonly known as the April, Budget?

Mr. Bowden: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that this is not a "phoney" prospectus.
It is much too soon to announce the date on which my right hon. Friend will

present his Budget. It could come a little earlier this year—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—because Easter falls rather earlier. But it is not usual to announce the date of the Budget more than about a fortnight before the actual Budget speech, and it is sometimes best to make it three weeks before.

Sir G. Nicholson: Is this shop window week, or sale of bankrupt stock?

Mr. Corfield: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman when he will provide time for his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government to reply to the very serious criticisms that have been made against him by the Council on Tribunals? Will he bear in mind that any failure on the part of the Government to provide that time can only be interpreted as an abandonment of the principles that the Council was set up to protect?

Mr. Bowden: I am in difficulties from both sides, because my right hon. Friend wants me to provide time, also. But I cannot promise anything immediately. If the hon. Gentleman could persuade his right hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench to provide time on Supply, that could be done.

Sir C. Taylor: So that hon. Members should have an opportunity of making reasonable arrangements for the future, would the right hon. Gentleman now give us the date of polling day?

Mr. Bowden: Not without notice, Sir.

Mr. Thorneycroft: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the grave discourtesy with which he and his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary have treated the House with regard to Thursday's business? He has given two assurances that we can debate the White Paper on the Parliamentary Commissioner before we have the Bill. Despite those assurances, and no doubt knowing that we could preclude such a debate, the Home Secretary published the Bill. This uncertainty turns what ought to be an interesting and important constitutional debate into a political gimmick.

Mr. Bowden: I am aware of my promise to debate this on a White Paper, but the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that under Standing Order No. 11 that is not now possible. I doubt very


much whether there would be any greater advantage obtained from a debate on the White Paper than on Second Reading.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: Would the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House afford time to debate the double taxation agreement with America? It is a most unfortunate agreement which has been knocking about, unsigned, and it ought to be debated in the House. It does great damage to our whole position. There is plenty of time to debate the matter now.

Mr. Bowden: It is subject to the affirmative Resolution procedure of the House and would have to be debated and approved by the House at some point. I cannot promise any additional time for that.

Sir L. Heald: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has observed in col. 399 of yesterday's OFFICIAL REPORT the statement of the Postmaster-General that the subject of pre-recorded television interviews is one worthy of wide public debate? Will he take prompt steps to ensure that it is debated in the most important public forum—the House of Commons?

Mr. Bowden: No, Sir. I cannot promise time immediately. There will be Government proposals on television generally and the B.B.C., and there are the opportunities on the Post Office Money Bill at a later stage. Beyond that, I cannot promise anything.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for the Minister of Defence to make a statement to clear up whether or not it is correct that Sir Solly Zuckerman is in disagreement with the Defence White Paper, and particularly the Government's carrier policy?

Mr. Bowden: It is regrettable that the names of civil servants should be bandied about the House in this way. If the hon. Gentleman wished to do so, he could raise this during the defence debate.

Mr. William Clark: I wish to come back to the point about the double taxation agreement with America. Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that it is quite unusual for any Government to issue a Press hand-out about a double taxation agreement? Would it not have been more courteous to have made that

Press hand-out available in the Library so that Members could consider it? Would he not agree that any Press handout must add to the ambiguity of taxing arrangements between this country and any other country? Does he realise that it is holding up business between this country and America? Will he make a statement?

Mr. Bowden: The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of it, but it was a joint decision, announced jointly on 5th January both in America and in this country. As I have said already, an opportunity will arise on the affirmative Motion which is required to debate it.

Mr. Lubbock: Further to the question about the action of the Minister of Housing and Local Government in the Islington case, would it not be more productive to have a debate on planning procedures and planning inquiries generally? Is this not a sufficiently important subject for Government time to be found for it?

Mr. Bowden: I certainly think that it would be more productive, but I cannot promise that.

Sir D. Renton: Would it not be more seemly to give the Minister of Housing and Local Government the opportunity of answering the charges made by the Council on Tribunals, instead of spending more Government time in pre-hustings skirmishes?

Mr. Bowden: My right hon. Friend made a statement in the House, which was subjected to the usual questioning. I feel that if hon. Members opposite are not prepared to take the normal methods of dealing with this, they should put down a Motion of censure.

Captain Litchfield: Coming back to the reference to the Chief Scientific Adviser, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the Government, both here and in another place, have been seeking to put a gloss on the individual attitudes of the Chiefs of Staff? Why, then, should not we know what is the attitude of the Chief Scientific Adviser?

Mr. Bowden: No attempt at all has been made to put a gloss on any view which he has expressed. The whole thing can be thoroughly debated during the defence debate.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Reverting to the right hon. Gentleman's last answer but one, is it not most unusual, when a Minister has been censured by an outside body, for the Government to ask the Opposition to provide an opportunity for that Minister to try to clear himself?

Mr. Bowden: I do not accept that my right hon. Friend was censured by an outside body.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when we are likely to have the Second Reading of the Bill which is to be introduced later today for setting up the National Board for Prices and Incomes? Is this likely to be before the General Election?

Mr. Bowden: I have already announced the business for the first two days of the week after next. I think that it is a bit much to expect me to go beyond that at this stage.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Agricultural Price Review statement will be made? Can he assure us that it will as usual be made in the House, and not at a time when the House is not sitting?

Mr. Bowden: I cannot give a date, but the usual period of the year is about mid-March, as far as I can recall.

BILL PRESENTED

PRICES AND INCOMES

Bill to establish a National Board for Prices and Incomes, and authorise the bringing into force of provisions requiring notice of price increases, pay increases and other matters, and for enforcing a temporary standstill in prices or charges or terms and conditions of employment; in connection with recommendations made by the said Board, to amend the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956; and for connected purposes, presented by Mr. George Brown; supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Herbert W. Bowden, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Wm. Ross, Mr. James Griffiths, Mr. Douglas Jay, Mr. Gunter, and Mr. Austen Albu; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 77.]

WELSH AFFAIRS

Matter of the future of the Welsh College of Advanced Technology and the University of Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for their consideration.—[Mr. Bowden.]

Orders of the Day — RATING BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause.—(RIGHT OF CHARITY TO PAY CERTAIN RATES ON DWELLINGS BY INSTALMENTS.)

(1) This section applies to any hereditament such as is mentioned in section 1(1) or section 2(1) of this Act in the case of which—

(a) the persons who reside or are usually resident therein consist wholly or mainly of persons who are beneficiaries of a charity; and
(b) the rates thereon are paid by that charity either as occupier of the hereditament or in pursuance of arrangements made between the charity and the persons who reside or are usually resident in the hereditament;

and in this section the expression "charity" means any body of persons or trust which appears to the Minister or, as the case may be, to the Secretary of State to be established wholly or mainly for charitable purposes.

(2) The Minister or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State may direct that any hereditament to which this section applies which is specified in the direction shall be treated for the purposes of section 1 or, as the case may be, section 2 of this Act as if the charity were both the occupier of, and residing in, that hereditament.—[Mr. MacColl.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

3.42 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl): I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
This Clause arises out of a discussion in Committee about the right of charities to pay their rates by instalments. We had quite a hot debate about it. We took the line that we had no evidence that any hardship was caused by charities having no right to pay by instalments. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), and the hon. Lady the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) rather strongly took the opposite view, that hardship might be caused in particular cases, such as old people's homes, homes for the disabled, and so on.
I promised that my right hon. Friend would look at this carefully. We have

no evidence of any cases where trouble has been caused by this; indeed, in the cases which we have found where hardship might arise we have found no evidence that the managers of these institutions have ever asked to pay by instalments.
The nearest thing to evidence on the matter came up in the Solicitors' Journal this week—and I expect the hon. Lady read it—in a case about the derating of a S.S.A.F.A. home. This was a case which went to the Chancery Court, where the charity was held to be the occupier of a home of this kind, and Mr. Justice Buckley said:
The question whether the flats ought to be regarded as occupied by the plaintiffs"—
that is, the charity—
was a question of fact which should be answered, keeping all the circumstances in view.
Mr. Justice Buckley held that the plaintiffs were a charity providing residence for needy ladies, but were controlling their activities so carefully and stringently that it amounted to the charity being the occupier, and not the people who were living in the flatlets. That is the evidence of a case where hardship might arise, though I have no evidence that in any case, either in the case to which the right hon. Gentleman referred or the case to which the hon. Lady referred, any application was made.
I say that because I think it would be a bit hard on local authorities and their financial advisers to imply that they have been churlish about this and that that is why we have put down this Clause. However, we have suggested this Clause so that there may be no doubt. It is clear in the Bill that charities of this kind can be given the right to pay by instalments.
What we are proposing is that if a charity applies for the right to pay by instalments, and it is refused the right, it will have power to complain to the Minister who, if he thinks fit, will be able to issue a direction requiring the instalment provision to be applied. I think that this is a better way of doing it than trying to produce an extremely clear definition which would cover particular cases where hardship might arise.

Mr. C. M. Woodhouse: I gather that the Amendment which I have tabled to the new Clause is not selected,


so I shall confine what I have to say to a question.
In this Clause the Minister is taking power to decide for himself what is, or is not, to be deemed to be a charity for the purposes of the Bill. In deciding what is or is not to be deemed a charity, will he be guided by previous legislation defining charities? I am sure that the Minister will see the point of my question if I refer him to the First Schedule of the 1961 Rating and Valuation Act which describes certain institutions as charities, namely, universities, and university institutions in this country, with the exception of the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. I assure the Minister that I am not about to parade King Charles's head this afternoon. I am aware that this is not the proper occasion to seek to rectify that anomaly.
The institutions listed in the First Schedule of the 1961 Act all enjoy the benefit of having either the whole or part of their rate liability met by the Exchequer. I have not been able to establish—though I have tried to do so by a number of Questions, including one this afternoon—whether the Exchequer meets the entirety of the rate liability of these institutions, or only their increased rate liability arising from the 1961 Act, but it is in any case a fact, as was revealed in figures given this afternoon by the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, that at least some of their rate liability is met by the Exchequer.
It is common ground that the effect of providing for the payment of rates by instalments is to give some relief to the ratepayers who take advantage of it. It also adds a marginal burden to the local authority and the rest of the ratepayers. In that case it seems inequitable that the Exchequer should be relieved at the expense of the ratepayers. The amounts involved may be small, but the principle seems to be entirely wrong. I should, therefore, like to know whether, in interpreting the definition of a charity as referred to in the new Clause, the Minister intends to be guided by previous legislation, and to count as charities for this purpose the institutions listed in the First Schedule to the 1961 Act.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: I thank the right hon. Gentleman and the

Parliamentary Secretary for tabling the new Clause, which meets some of the points that we made in Committee. Many of us feel that charities should not have to prove hardship in order to gain the benefit of Clause 1 any more than the domestic ratepayer has to prove hardship in order to do so. We feel that it will be greatly for the convenience of many charities if, instead of their having to find lump sums twice a year to meet a specific rate commitment, they are able to pay by way of a number of smaller instalments, which they can find at regular intervals.
A large commitment is often quite an embarrassment to a charity and may preclude it from being able to spend money on a contingent liability which may arise. I remember that on one occasion, when the weather was rather cold, a charity in my constituency experienced great difficulty in finding money to meet the cost of repairing a boiler which had broken down. The rate bill came in at the same time, and added to the charity's difficulties. If such a charity can now pay its rates by instalments—subject to the Minister's consent, if necessary—it may well be that money which it had formerly earmarked for rates can be used for some other purpose, while it continues to raise money for the next instalment of rates.
I am grateful for the new Clause, which we shall support. I hope that the Minister will also consider the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse).

Mr. MacColl: If I may speak again, with the leave of the House, I should like to deal with the points raised by the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Wood-house). On the merits of the case, my right hon. Friend would not want to give power to an Oxford college to pay its rates by instalments. As for the legal position, I am advised—and this may surprise the hon. Gentleman—that a college is an educational charity and the beneficiaries of an educational charity are the public and not the individual students, and certainly not the dons. I think that that meets the hon. Member's point.

Mr. Woodhouse: I was referring to the institutions which are listed in the First Schedule to the 1961 Act. They do not


include the colleges of Oxford or Cambridge, although they include all the other university institutions. It was about those that I was talking.

Mr. MacColl: They are educational charities, and the same point arises.
I thank the hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) for what she said. She also expressed the view that it would be a comfort to these bodies to know that they can now pay by instalments. I have tried to underline the fact that they have always been able to pay by instalments, with the good will of their local authorities. I have no evidence that local authorities have not acted sympathetically in this matter. Therefore, my advice—which I hope will be passed on—is not to wait until the Minister has made an order, but to ring up the borough treasurer and get his sympathy and advice as to how best to deal with the problem. I suspect that, if not in all cases certainly in the great majority, local authorities will be happy to help charities. The Clause provides a reserve power in the event of a breakdown.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(DISCOUNT IN RESPECT OF RATES ON DWELLING-HOUSE.)

(1) The rating authority may, if they think fit, by resolution direct that an allowance by way of discount of such amount not exceeding two-and-a-half per cent. as may be specified in the resolution shall be granted to any per son entitled to give a notice under section 1(1) of this Act in respect of a hereditament which is a dwelling-house, whether or not he has in fact given such a notice, who pays the net amount due by way of rates on that hereditament either—

(a) otherwise than by instalments; or
(b) by instalments required in pursuance of section 15 of the Poor Rate Assessment and Collection Act 1869.
before such date or respective dates as the rating authority may specify.

(2) If an allowance under this section is made in respect of a hereditament in respect of which a notice under subsection (1) of section 1 of this Act is for the time being in force, that notice shall thereupon cease to be in force and, notwithstanding anything in the said subsection (1), rates on that hereditament shall cease to be payable in accordance with that section, without prejudice, however, to the right to give a fresh notice under the said subsection (1) in accordance with subsection (2)(a), of that section.

(3) The rating authority may at any time revoke or vary a resolution under this section.

(4) While any resolution under this section is in force, a statement of the effect thereof shall be included in or sent with every demand note on which rates are levied in respect of any hereditament which is a dwelling-house, being a demand note in respect of a rate period beginning on or after 1st October 1966.

(5) Nothing in this section shall prejudice the powers with respect to allowances by way of discount conferred by section 8 of the Rating and Valuation Act 1925 or any provision for like purposes contained in any local Act, but a person who is for the time being entitled to an allowance under this section in respect of any hereditament shall not be entitled to an allowance in respect of that hereditament under the said section 8 or any such provision of a local Act as aforesaid.

(6) In section 9(4)(a) of the Rating and Valuation Act 1925 (which enables rules made for the purposes of certain precepts to provide in what manner and to what extent any allowances made under section 8 of that Act are to be treated as deductions in estimating and ascertaining the amount produced by a rate) the reference to such allowances shall be construed as including a reference to allowances made under this section.

(7) In the application of this section to Scotland—

(a) in subsection (1), for the reference to section 1(1) of this Act there shall be substituted a reference to section 2(1) thereof, and the words from "either" to the end of paragraph (b) and the words "or respective dates" shall be omitted;
(b) in subsection (2), for any reference to section 1 of this Act there shall be substituted a reference to section 2 thereof, and the words from "in accordance" onwards shall be omitted;
(c) in subsection (4) the words from "being" onwards shall be omitted;
(d) in subsection (5), for the reference to section 8 of the Rating and Valuation Act 1925 there shall be substituted references to section 12 of the Local Government (Development and Finance) (Scotland) Act 1964; and
(e) subsection (6) shall be omitted.

—[Mr. MacColl.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
This Clause also deals with a matter that was discussed in Committee. Two arguments were propounded in relation to it—one that the power to enable discount for prompt payment should be mandatory on local authorities, and the other that it should be discretionary. Before the Bill there was power for a local authority to allow discount, but it had to apply to commercial as well as to domestic ratepayers.
The view expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee was that this was unreasonable, and that as we were introducing a power to allow payment by instalments it would be reasonable that the same group of people who had this new right of paying by instalments ought to be given an incentive to pay promptly, that incentive taking the form of a discount comparable to the discount which can be given under previous legislation.
As a result of our debate in Committee we have brought in this new Clause, based on the discretionary principle. We take the view that it would not be right to inflict this as a duty on local authorities. Those authorities which feel that such an incentive would be worth while are given the power to provide it. The new Clause follows closely the old legislation in the form of the 1925 Act. It provides that local authorities may decide whether or not to offer a discount, and may specify the date by which the rates must be paid.
I draw attention to subsection (2), which provides that although a ratepayer can opt to pay by instalments but finally decide to settle in full, he cannot opt to settle in full and then decide to pay by instalments; he will, instead, have to wait until the next financial year, when he can start from scratch and then claim the right to pay by instalments.

Mr. James Allason: I greet this Clause with modified rapture. The Parliamentary Secretary has pointed out that two points of view were expressed on this matter—one, that there should be a mandatory requirement to grant 2½ per cent. discount to those people covered by Clause 1, and the other, which was expressed in the terms of the Amendment in my name, that there should be discretionary power for local authorities to grant discount in respect of persons to whom they wished to grant it.
In the Clause the Parliamentary Secretary has steered a very narrow course between the two points of view, in that he grants discretionary powers to local authorities, but only in respect of those persons defined in Clause 1(1). The Clause will be of great benefit to local authorities in encouraging people to pay promptly and to receive 2½ per cent. discount. On the other hand, it leaves

out various other classes which the local authorities might have wished to include. Their difficulty, of course, has been that, under Section 8 of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, the local authorities could give a discount only to all ratepayers.
4.0 p.m.
There is now, under the Bill, a power for certain ratepayers to pay by instalments, so, clearly, there ought also to be some power for local authorities to be able to grant to certain classes of ratepayers the 2½ per cent. discount. But I would suggest that it is a pity to confine this to precisely those defined in subsection (1) of Clause 1. For example, under this new Clause, charities will be able to receive payment by instalments, but not, of course, the 2½ per cent. discount in lieu. That will mean, therefore, that every charity will find it a financial advantage to pay by instalments. Even though they could afford to pay on the dot, they will take the more complicated course. This means more work and more expense for local authorities and it is a pity that charities are not included.
Secondly, landlords who, voluntarily—not under any arrangement under the 1925 Act—pay the rates on behalf of their tenants in bulk will in turn be penalised. If they pass it on to their tenants and make them pay the rates, the tenants will, of course, be entitled to pay by instalments. But the landlord will not be entitled either to pay by instalments or to receive the discount, so his best financial arrangement will be to pass the liability to pay rates on to his tenants.
The Parliamentary Secretary said in Standing Committee that this was a great advantage. He thought that it was a good thing that tenants should pay their own rates. I do not believe that this is so in the case of local authorities. It seems a disadvantage that a greater number of ratepayers should be entitled to this than there is at the moment.
Finally, there are the other classes of ratepayer whom a local authority might wish to try to help. An example is the small shopkeeper in a small way of business. The local authority might consider that, because substantial and wealthy householders are entitled to receive the 2½ per cent. discount, it is unfair that the small shopkeeper should not receive it as well. The authority might


wish to be able to give this discount, but under the Clause it will not be allowed to do so.
I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary did not accept my Amendment, which was simple and brief, and that, instead, no less than 35 lines must be added to the Bill for England alone, plus further lines for Scotland. However, this is a very prolix Bill and I am not surprised to find this great extension to it. I welcome the Clause, but with modified rapture.

Mrs. Thatcher: I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) has already made the main points, so I will not detain the House for long. I wish only to make three points.
First, I think that it is probably right to give this relief by way of discretion to local authorities rather than by way of a mandate. Clearly, the effect of giving the discount for prompt payment would vary very much between local authorities, so it is right that they should have this discretion. We are a little disappointed, however, that the area of discretion is so narrow.
Secondly, I hope that this discretion will be used in future rather more widely than it has been in the past. Local authorities have been very loath to give a discount for prompt payment of rates, but I understand from many municipal treasurers that, until now, this was because they would have had to give it to all classes of ratepayers. If they could give it to domestic ratepayers only, they would be encouraged to use it a good deal more widely.
Thirdly, as my hon. Friend said, we are somewhat disappointed that charities still have something of a poor deal under the new Clause. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary perhaps to reconsider this point so that it might be rectified in another place. I understand that the time is short, but, naturally, if he wants the Bill to go through in another place, he will have to make arrangements fairly quickly. I ask him to consider extending the discretion which local authorities can give so that they could give it in favour of the charities with which we were dealing in the last new Clause.

Mr. MacColl: If I may, by leave of the House—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman does not need the leave of the House.

Mr. MacColl: Some day, I will get this right. I have been wrong every time so far, Mr. Speaker.
The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) says that this provision is confined to all domestic ratepayers. We felt that selective discounts represented treacherous ground for local authorities. It would be difficult for them to have a standard of selection in what they would allow, particularly in the commercial ranges which the hon. Member mentioned, where the problem of competition might arise. There might be difficulties about saying that one person was entitled to a discount although another was not. If—

Mrs. Thatcher: With respect, I do not think that this is what my hon. Friend meant. He was concerned with discretion to classes of ratepayers rather than to individual ratepayers.

Mr. MacColl: That probably makes the position more complicated, as to how one defines the classes. It would be difficult to pick a particular definition and ascertain that it covered all the people whom one wanted to cover and was not just a straightforward test of whether each person was a domestic ratepayer—which, clearly, would be simple to establish. I can understand what the hon. Member feels about the small shopkeeper. It is a difficult position for them, but it would be difficult to find a definition of small shopkeepers which did not also include other people who might not need this advantage.
I thought that it was a little hard of the hon. Gentleman to refer to the length of the Clause. Neither Parliamentary counsel nor Parliamentary Secretaries are paid by the line and we have no incentive to make a Clause too long. When we resisted some Amendments in this vein in the Standing Committee, on the ground that they would complicate the Bill, we were scolded for not facing up to our responsibilities. Some of these matters are complicated and I think that parliamentary counsel has worked extremely hard and with great skill and imagination to launch these provisions into the Bill.
Therefore, I hope that the Clause will present itself favourably to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 3.—(DISREGARD OF SERVICE DISABLEMENT PENSIONS, &C.)

There shall be left out of account for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of section 5 of this Act all pensions, gratuities and allowances awarded under any Warrant or Order in Council for the time being in force payable to an officer or man in respect of disablement or injury attributable to service with Her Majesty's forces or to the widow or dependant of an officer or man who died through a cause arising out of his service as aforesaid.—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

Brought up, and read the First Time.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Speaker: I think that it will be for the convenience of the House to discuss with this Clause, new Clause 4 (Charitable payments):
For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of section 5 of this Act, there shall be left out of account payments from any charitable, benevolent or trust fund not exceeding in total £1 a week,
new Clause 5 (Income disregards for those over 65):
For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of section 5 of this Act, there shall be left out of account the first thirty shillings a week of the income of a single person aged 65 or over, and the first fifty shillings a week of the income of a married couple one of whom is aged 65 years or over,
and new Clause 6 (National Insurance disregards):
For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of section 5 of this Act, there shall be left out of account payments made out of the National Insurance Funds by way of sickness, industrial injury and disablement benefits,
All four are concerned with the subject of disregards.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I respectfully agree, Mr. Speaker. They are all on disregards. I do not know whether the indication which you have given is also an indication that, in the event of the Clauses being resisted, you might call them separately for a Division.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would leave that for the

moment and make the request to me later.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps some of these Clauses will commend themselves to the Government.
The two previous new Clauses were produced by the right hon. Gentleman in response, at any rate in part, to proposals made in Committee. As one of my hon. Friends said, we are grateful for modest mercies. It is, however, a matter for regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not tabled Amendments to meet the points made in this batch of new Clauses. As the Minister will recall, some related issues—and, to some extent, the precise issues—were discussed upstairs, when strong feeling was expressed that there should be some advance made in this direction.
As you remarked, Mr. Speaker, each of these four new Clauses provides for what, if one adopts National Assistance Board nomenclature, one can describe as disregards. It is proposed that in assessing the levels of income which will entitle an applicant to rebates under the Bill, one should leave out of account in the calculation certain forms of income. This is a procedure which is familiar in other activities. As I suggested, the word is very familiar in the National Assistance context and equally in the sphere of Inland Revenue, where various forms of what otherwise would be income are not taken into account in assessing a person's tax liability.
In all those cases the House has provided for those disregards because it has thought that there are circumstances attached to those payments which make it right and proper that they should not count against a person, either from the point of view of assessing his income on a National Assistance application, or from the point of view of the imposition of taxation. In other words, there is something about the nature of these payments which is of a special character demanding, in those contexts, special treatment.
New Clause 3 seeks to exclude from the calculations of income payments made by way of war pensions either to men disabled in the service of this country or to their widows and dependants These proposals can be of


substantial importance in the context of the Bill. As hon. Members may recall, the figures of income which the right hon. Gentleman has laid down as providing the test for full eligibility for rebate are £8 for a single person and £10 for a married couple. As the result of the efforts of many Governments, the levels of war pension payments in this country have been successively raised over the years and, for many of the poorer war pensioners, their eligibility for help under the Bill will be determined by the new Clause.
In other words, the amount that they are now receiving—and this applies above all to those for whom we have the greatest sympathy; the most seriously disabled of all—by way of war pension, on top of whatever other income they have, may be in many cases such as to take those people out of the benefits of the Bill unless the Clause is adopted. This is, therefore, of practical importance in this connection.
War disability pensions are disregarded—not war widows' pensions, to which I shall refer—for the purposes of Income Tax. They are non-taxable. That is a very important precedent. The House will know that the concession of allowing a form of what would otherwise be taxable income to be treated as tax free is not lightly given by whoever may be responsible at any time for Her Majesty's Treasury, but it has been the consistent policy of Governments of all political colours to maintain that immunity.
The reasons are obvious. It is felt that injury and disability suffered in the Armed Forces entitle the sufferer to very special recognition and gratitude from the country and that, therefore, it is right that that income should not be treated as taxable. It seems a plain anomaly that while, in the sphere of Income Tax, exemption is given—a complete disregard is given—this income should, on the other hand, under the Bill, be counted against a man for the purposes of determining whether his income is small enough to qualify under the Bill. This is an anomaly which, at this stage of the Measure, we should put right.
The position of war widows is, as we discussed upstairs, somewhat different in the sense that their war pensions are

taxable. This is not a view that has appealed to the ex-Service organisations, but it has been sustained by successive Governments and there is a factor in respect of their taxation which distinguishes these payments from the question which arises here, which is their reckon-ability for the purposes of rent rebate. A concession for war widows' pensions, to make them tax free, though agreeable and attractive in many ways, would, of course, give the greatest benefit to the widow with the most other means because of the way in which such a concession would have a greater value the higher the income. It would, therefore, not be concentrated on those most in need.
That objection does not apply in this respect because unless the incomes are quite modest there can be no question of eligibility for these rent rebates and, therefore, the difficulty which in the Income Tax sphere has affected war widows does not arise. We are, therefore, suggesting in new Clause 3 that both the already tax free war disability payments and the present taxable war widows' allowances should not be taken account of by local authorities in assessing a person's income on an application for a rebate.
4.15 p.m.
New Clause 4 deals with a different point—payments from any charitable, benevolent or trust fund not exceeding £1 a week. The House will recall that there are precedents in the area of National Assistance for this. I speak subject to correction, but I think that the present figure for National Assistance disregard for charitable payments is 15s. a week. We need not quarrel as between the 15s. or the £1 in this Clause since the disregard will be reviewed before long and no doubt increased to £1 in the National Assistance scheme.
In considering this Clause it is important to judge why the National Assistance scheme has that disregard in respect of charitable payments. The reason is obvious. Charitable bodies will be less likely to make payment from their funds to people in need if they know that the indirect consequence of their doing so will merely be to relieve some public authority of an obligation which would otherwise fall on it. In the context of National Assistance, if a charitable payment were taken into


account from the National Assistance point of view, and the Board paid a man less because of such a payment, that would be an obvious discouragement to any charitable organisation to make such payments.
The same argument applies in this context. It was pointed out in Committee by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that, in respect of these rebates, the whole of these amounts would not necessarily be taken into account but only a part of them. However, the principle is identical. If one wants to encourage charitable bodies to make payments to people who are in need, one wants so to arrange matters that they know that the whole of those charitable payments will improve the position of the person in need. Otherwise, in fairness to those who subscribe to the charity, the funds of which, in many cases, very hard worked for, there might be real objection to making a payment which does not give full additional relief to the person in need to whom it is directed.
New Clause 5 raises a different issue. It: proposes a higher level of income in respect of people aged 65 or over before they can be disqualified from receiving the rebates in full. It proposes that the figure in respect of single people when they become 65 should be raised from £8 to £9 10s. a week and in respect of married people from £10 to £12 10s. a week. Here, public policy has already expressed itself in the Income Tax sphere.
The Committee of Ways and Means will recall that we have spent many hours in this Chamber discussing the age exemption and the age relief for Income Tax purposes, and all parties have agreed that it is right to give a higher point of entry into Income Tax for those over 65; and also to give them some relief in respect of what otherwise would be treated as unearned income when beyond that age. Here, again, the reasons are obvious. It is felt that people at a certain age find their physical needs increasing and their physical capacity for meeting them diminishing, and their needs, as a result of that age, the greater.
Where the traditionally tough-hearted Revenue and Treasury have accepted a social proposition of this kind, it would

seem a great pity if this Measure which, as the right hon. Gentleman has so eloquently informed us, is designed for the relief of hardship, should not make similar analogous provision. We therefore propose a clear-cut age exemption in the rebate system proposed in the Bill. We propose it with straightforward simple figures. We suggest that there can be no administrative difficulty. The fact that they are persons of this age can easily be demonstrated, and requires to be demonstrated only once. There can be no difficulty in operating this proposal to the benefit of the older people concerned. Hon. Members know from their own constituencies how very severe the problem of the rate is for the older person on the fixed or diminishing income.
New Clause 6 would disregard for this purpose payments for sickness and industrial injury, and disablement benefits. These payments, again, are disregarded for Income Tax purposes, and their nature, the cause for which they are made, excites our sympathy. If people are ill or have suffered industrial injury, not only are they proper objects for sympathy and a desire to help but they also have to incur, in material terms in most cases, additional expenditure which those not so suffering do not have to incur. It therefore seems right that these payments, made out of a public fund created for the very purpose of giving relief, should not be allowed to operate to diminish the help given to someone under the provisions of this Bill.
The House may well feel that opinions could legitimately differ as to whether we have picked out exactly the right forms of payment for exactly the right kind of disregards. That is a matter on which opinions could obviously and with complete honesty and sincerity differ: but it seems to us that it is important that disregards of this kind should be inserted in the Bill.
During our earlier debates, the right hon. Gentleman and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary have resisted these proposals on broadly, two grounds. First, they have said that the proposals are contrary to the main pattern of the Bill and, secondly, that they would be administratively too heavy a burden for the local authorities to handle. I should like to deal with both of those objections.
The first point is that, as the Bill is framed, broadly—though with a significant exception—disregards are not included, but simple, straightforward figures of income are included; and the right hon. Gentleman has told us that in defining "income" he has adopted the judgment of the late Mr. Justice Bronson some years ago, that income is what comes in. That was a comparatively simple if, perhaps, virtually platitudinous definition, if I may say so with respect to the late learned judge. But it is extremely simple.
On the other hand, simplicity in these matters can sometimes be purchased at the price of inequity, and I think that to disregard entirely the strong social reasons which have caused these various matters to be excluded from Income Tax and not taken into account in National Assistance is paying too high a price for simplicity.
But that argument would be stronger if there were no disregards at all in the Bill. That is not the case. The House will be aware that Clause 5(3) contains the following very substantial disregard:
There shall be left out of account for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of this section—

(a) any income by way of payments in respect of living accommodation or board made by any person residing or usually resident in the relevant premises within the meaning of section 4(4) of this Act except, in the case of a rebate application by such a person as is mentioned in section 3(3)(c) of this Act, payments to that person by way of rent by a sub-tenant of part of the relevant premises…"

That is to say, payments by way of board or lodging by a lodger in a house are disregarded for the purpose of assessing the applicant's income.
I will anticipate the point that the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary will make—because they made it in the Standing Committee and, as far as it goes, it has validity. They said that while this is admittedly disregarded, account is taken of those people in the calculation made where account is taken of the number of adults other than dependants living in the house. It is perfectly true that the account taken of the number of adults other than dependants living in the house reduces, in some measure, the entitlement to rebate—I give the right hon. Gentleman that point, for what it is worth—but the fact remains that

the existence in the house of someone else who is making perhaps a very substantial payment for board and lodging cannot exclude some payment by way of rebate. It can reduce the amount of rebate, because this enters into the calculation of the fraction, but some rebate will remain however much that person is contributing.
I am not at this moment criticising this provision—I would be ruled out of order if I did so at this point. I merely call it in aid as showing that it is not right to say that by seeking to introduce these disregards we are going against the whole pattern of the Bill. There is, in substance, therefore, an important disregard—a disregard of these payments by a lodger or lodgers, however large the payments, and although, as I say, the presence of those lodgers may diminish the amount of rebate, they cannot extinguish it under the scheme in the Bill. There is, therefore, this very important disregard.
If there is to be a disregard to this quite substantial extent in respect of payments made by a lodger, I ask the House to look at the merits of the matter. If we are to disregard for partial effect payments made by a lodger, ought we not the more to disregard payments made for disability suffered in the war or in the mines, or made in respect of sickness, or take account also of the financial circumstances of old age? If one has to weigh these payments by a lodger on their social merits against the payments referred to under these Clauses, I am sure most hon. Members would come down in favour of the payments proposed in the Clauses as having the greater merit.
4.30 p.m.
The last thing which one wants to do is to put more burden on municipal treasurers. The House recognises, and must respect, their ability and the willingness they have shown to assume additional burdens, but would these provisions cause much difficulty? The war pensions disregards would be simplicity itself. A certificate from the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance as to the amount of war disability or war widow's pension could be given. Those pensions do not change very frequently. All that is needed is a certificate and an elementary calculation.
In respect of charitable payments, the charity concerned could be asked to give


a certificate of the payments it is making. In giving such a certificate it could help the person the charity has aided. There is no sensible reason why the charity should not give such a certificate, which could be made a condition of the exemption. The calculation in respect of old people for the purposes of new Clause 5 would be perfectly easy. A local authority can calculate on the basis of £8 a week. It would have no difficulty in calculating on the basis of £9 10s. a week for a person who has produced his pension book of any other piece of evidence. Again, it would be a once-and-for-all operation.
The same goes for the provisions in new Clause 6. An officer of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance would have no difficulty in giving a certificate for the amount of these payments if it were necessary. The administrative task placed on local authorities would, in fact be more difficult as the Bill stands than if these provisions were put into it. The recipients of these payments are used to not disclosing them for Income Tax purposes or for social security purposes because they know that they are not bound to do so. There may well be some confusion and misunderstanding if people who are used to regarding them as payments which they do not have to disclose find that they ought to disclose them and may be subject to criminal penalties if they apply for a rebate and do not disclose them.
On administrative grounds the arguments cut the other way. Local authorities may well find it easier to administer the scheme with these disregards than without them. Be that as it may, I ask the House to recollect that these disregards or provisions for tax-free payment—there are both in this list—have been endorsed by the House for good social reasons, either in recognition of hardship or of the debt the country owes to a certain class of people, or to the need not to discourage the making of charitable payments. These are all good social reasons which the House has accepted in these contexts. Therefore, there does no seem much need to argue their merits at undue length. I think that they speak for themselves.
This seems to be the right stage of the Bill to make a conspicuous improvement in it, an improvement which would enable

special and additional help to be given under this Measure to members of our society whom hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am sure, would like to see benefited and helped.

Mr. Allason: I wish to address my remarks to new Clause 5. Here, I think, the taxation position of the applicant for a rebate is very relevant. We would expect to find that the maximum rebate on rates, the level at which it can be received, should be rather higher than the point at which there is complete tax exemption.
For example, for a single person the maximum rebate is granted if the income does not exceed £416 a year. At that stage of his income he gets maximum rebate, whereas he starts to pay tax if his income is about £283 a year. When his income is one-third more than that at which he starts to pay tax, he gets the maximum rebate and thereafter it starts to fall off. The married person who pays tax when his income is £437 a year can receive maximum rebate if his income is £520 a year. This is a perfectly understandable position. We ought to be logical about this position.
When we look at the position of old-age pensioners we find a very different situation. A single man of 65 does not have to pay tax if his income is not over £395 a year, but he does not get maximum rebate unless his income is £416 a year or under, the same limit as for a single man. For an older person the situation is very much worse. A married person of 65 pays no tax on an income up to £625 a year, whereas the maximum rebate is paid on an income up to £520 a year. We could well have the position of a married pensioner who, although he is exempt from tax is also receiving no rebate at all under the Bill.
Under new Clause 5 a single pensioner would get exemption up to £494 a year and a married couple over 65 years of age would get exemption up to £650 a year, slightly above the level at which they pay no tax. I am astonished at our modernation in this proposal, but we want to be co-operative. At the least there seems a very good case for the sums suggested by new Clause 5. In normal terms the level starts to bite on an income of about £13 a week for a married couple and £11 a week for a single person. Up to that level, there


will be some rate rebate, but virtually nothing at that level, and above it there will be an increase in the rate to be paid to the tune of what the Minister called something like 1d. rate.
On Second Reading, the Minister said:
this will mean that to an average extent of a 1d. rate, the better-off ratepayers will be mulcted in order to pay a quarter of the relief. Hence the cries of agony from Tory spokesmen over the weekend".
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
Hon. Members have complained bitterly about a 1d. rate being put on the wealthier ratepayers in order to pay for the rebates."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th December, 1965; Vol. 722, c. 42.]
Those wealthier ratepayers are, in the case of old-age pensioners, those who are exempt from paying Income Tax because it would be unreasonable to tax them. I remind the Minister of what he said yesterday, as reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT at column 539:
It is worth remembering that 14 per cent. of male wage earners earn less than £13 a week gross. I find it difficult to regard them as members of the affluent society."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd February, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 539.]
That seems a very great change of heart when we remember that the Minister described them in December as the better-off, suitable to be mulcted, and wealthier—those very same people receiving £13 a week and less. Old-age pensioners have been the worst hit by the rate rises which have taken place over the past few years, and, in particular, by the very heavy rate rises last and this year.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Richard Crossman): And the year before.

Mr. Allason: That increase was nothing like the appalling increases which took place last year and the year before. Never before was the increase as great as 14 per cent.

Mr. Crossman: The average rate increase since 1957 has been 10 per cent.

Mr. Allason: Would the right hon. Gentleman mind taking the period of the 13 years of Tory rule, when it would be 5·5 per cent.?

Mr. Crossman: I think that we have to start after revaluation. We have taken the figure since revaluation.

Mr. Allason: The right hon. Gentleman always conveniently forgets revaluation. He always asserts that in their 13 years the Tories never did anything. He forgets that they re-rated industry from 25 per cent. to 50 per cent. and that this brought down the burden on domestic ratepayers by about 30 per cent. in 1956.

Mr. Crossman: That is a useful and purgative reminder. I shall in future never forget to say that in 13 years the Tories did at least one thing, which was the revaluation of industry. That is something which I shall always remember to add to my indictment of Tory neglect.

Mr. Allason: Perhaps the Minister would recall that at a later stage the Tories did a second thing, which was to re-rate industry from 50 per cent. to 100 per cent., again with the object of helping domestic ratepayers. They also introduced the general grant, which gave the opportunity of varying the proportion borne by the Exchequer and that borne by ratepayers. This is another step which the right hon. Gentleman always forgets, but which the Tories took during those 13 years. It was for these reasons that over the 13 years of Tory rule the average rate increase was 5·5 per cent., which is very different from the average under Labour rule of 14 per cent.
Pensioners' incomes do rise, but there are many who receive no pensions and who are on fixed small incomes. The incomes of those people do not rise. They merit the most generous treatment of all. I sincerely hope that the Minister will accept new Clause 5.

4.45 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I do not need to speak for very long after the excellent and comprehensive speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). While sitting on these benches I have been contemplating. I know full well how the Minister contemplates. He is always contemplating how he can "have a dig" at the 13 years of Tory rule. I am always contemplating


the sanctimonious support that always comes from the right hon. Gentleman for those who are really hard hit, but who, when the opportunity comes to do something for them, just sits and jeers and jeers. Therefore, we can both contemplate.
I am astounded that my right hon. and hon. Friends have had to table these new Clauses and apparently reargue the whole case which was made in Committee. Of course, one can always hope, and I was also hoping in my deep contemplation that, as soon as my right hon. Friend resumed his seat after his excellent speech, the Minister would rise and accept all these new Clauses. [Laughter.] It is no good laughing. It is nothing to laugh about. My division has an above-average proportion of retired people and I can assure right hon. and hon. Members opposite that they will not be laughing. Look at the empty benches opposite. It is all light to have that jeering mass sitting opposite.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Robert Mellish): What did the hon. Lady do for them?

Dame Irene Ward: Quite a lot, a great deal more than the hon. Gentleman did.
I was very surprised that the right hon. Gentleman did not rise straight away and accept all the new Clauses. I was very interested when my right hon. Friend put forward the two reasons why apparently the principles embodied in the new Clauses were rejected in Committee. I have tried to take some guidance on these matters. I understand that there are many anomalies which the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants has questioned. The Institute must have been watching the new Clauses proposed in Committee. Perhaps we shall hear from the right hon. Gentleman whether he has received any representations from the Institute on the difficulties of administration of these new Clauses, because I doubt very much, after hearing the very clear description given by my right hon. Friend, whether the Institute would make any representations in respect of the suggestions.

Mr. MacColl: As I said in Committee, our advisers from among the municipal

treasurers advised us against having any disregards.

Dame Irene Ward: Now we know. If that is the fact, I shall immediately resign as a vice-president of the Association of Municipal Corporations. I would question whether this matter was among the difficulties which the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants put forward to the Minister, but I should be out of order if I were to pursue that subject.
There could be no greater simplicity than what would be involved in the administration of these proposals. If right hon. and hon. Members opposite have so little regard for those living on small fixed incomes, I am delighted to think that the country will take this into account, because it shows them up as shams. I have never been able to persuade my party to adopt all the things that I want to adopt, but that is another story.
I have listened to many speeches made from public platforms, over the radio and on television. I am certain that none of those living on small fixed incomes such as are envisaged in the Clauses would ever have contemplated the reaction of right hon. and hon. Members opposite to these Clauses. I only hope that the right hon. Gentleman has the most unpleasant dreams from now for the rest of his life, unless he accepts these Clauses in toto.
May I apologise to the House for the fact that I shall not be here later. [Laughter.] I do not want to listen to the right hon. Gentleman, because I gather from the laughter that he is not sympathetic. I do not see why I should have to listen to him and I have no intention of doing so. I can go and listen to somebody very much better than he is, although I apologise to the House for the fact that I shall not be here.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: rose—

Dame Irene Ward: No; I do not want to listen to anybody. I shall not listen to anybody on the other side of the House. I only apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to my own side of the House, for the fact that I cannot wait until the end of the debate. But I


hope to be in the Division Lobby against right hon. and hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Norman Cole: I wish to relate our discussion of all these new Clauses to the atmosphere in which the House debated the social services yesterday. I am sure that any outside observer watching the House at work yesterday would have said—I pay tribute to both sides here, and I am sure that this is probably inherent in the attitude of both sides—that the House as a whole was seeking to improve the social conditions and benefits available to the people of this country.
The great argument was about which method would in the long run prove the most effective in this modern age, not looking back towards the past. About our general desire to do something by the use of State funds there would probably not have been much argument between the two sides. The argument was about method, which, of course, is all-important.
Turning from that debate, I come to the principles embodied in these new Clauses, which, goodness knows, we have had the deuce of the fight about both in Standing Committee and in the House in order to get them considered at all by the Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) said, it is astonishing, both because of the Government's stated intentions and of the atmosphere in which our debate took place yesterday, that we should have to press these simple matters upon the Government now.
Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite may talk about adding to administrative difficulties, not to mention finance and all the rest, but I cannot believe that those are their true reasons for rejecting these proposals. I believe that there is one simple reason which, though I understand it, I cannot sympathise with at all.
The Government are frightened of opening the door at all lest they may be lost in a morass of bewilderment, not knowing what to do. They think that it is much simpler to say that there shall be no disregards at all save the important one in respect of lodgers in the house embodied in the Bill already. Presumably, that disregard, because it relates to the occupation of the property, can be confined

to that aspect of the matter, but, as soon as the Government start to think about the social service disregards, they find themselves in difficulty. To put it bluntly, they have taken the line of least resistance and refused them all. This may be simple, but it is not just.
What are the principles embodied in these four new Clauses? In each case they are related to a reward from society,—or, in the case of new Clause 4, "Charitable payments", from a society—to compensate someone who is less fortunate and less privileged than the average member of society today.
The first deals with Service disablement pensioners. The principle embodied in this Clause must, surely, be accepted in the heart of every person in this country irrespective of politics or anything else. Disablement pensions, as those of us who have fought before the tribunals know, are not given easily, but they are given as some sort of compensation to a person who has suffered disablement, who is, in other words, not fully capable of carrying on his ordinary job or earning the income which his abilities might otherwise bring in.
New Clause 4 is related to charitable contributions from a society. Charitable societies do not give assistance unless they are satisfied of the need of the person concerned, and they keep these matters under fairly regular review. I do not mean that they keep them under constant review month by month, but the scrutiny is regularly maintained.
One must accept that a charity registered under the Charities Act will know what the need is of a person receiving its contributions, and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) pointed out, the funds from which such charitable contributions are made have been hard won by collection and by other means and they are passed out carefully to the recipients. This Clause also, therefore, is founded upon matters peculiar to the individual which are very much in the same category as other disregards.
New Clause 5 is related to the needs of the elderly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) said, not only our taxation rules but many other parts of our social administration recognise the fact of life


which all of us in the House, even the Minister himself in due course, will come to understand, namely, that advancing age makes a person's needs greater and his ability to earn less. This has been recognised as a principle of life probably ever since we have had our modern civilisation in Britain.
Why cannot we act upon that principle in this Bill, which is, after all, a social service gesture? I cannot understand it, unless, of course, I am right in the idea which I keep in mind all the time, that the Government are choosing the line of least resistance, keeping the door closed to everyone so that nothing can pass through. I repeat that I find this a thoroughly unsatisfactory and unjust approach.
New Clause 6 is related to needs which are equally as deserving. The whole panoply of our social service arrangements is designed to help those who have been lair aside from the normal run of life and work because of industrial injury. I had always thought that this was a subject dear to the hearts of the Government. At least, they are always saying that it is more dear to them than it is to us. This Clause would introduce disregards in respect of disablement benefits, disablement grants, industrial injuries and sickness generally. But, apparently, it excites no kind of sympathetic reaction on the benches opposite and the Government refuse a relaxation even in this case.
I am not likely to have this idea either confirmed or denied, but I cannot help feeling that some members of the Government and some of their supporters would like to give these latter disregards and, perhaps, some of the others. But, of course, their reaction must remain the same: give nothing here either. Close out this one and close out them all. This is no way to administer a social service Bill. It has already been pointed out from this side of the House that these things have always been disregarded in other walks of life and in other sectors of our social finance and they should be disregarded here.
Although it is said that what we propose would increase the difficulties of those who have to administer the Bill, and would cause a lot of complication in the work of local treasurers, there is

this further point to be made. Leaving aside for the moment the question whether the Bill will do what it is supposed to do at all, which I doubt because of the injustice built into it, what about all the bitterness and resentment which will be felt by people who have been into the question of all these potential disregards and who know also about the actual disregards which must be brought into account in the general picture?
If people left out see others, perhaps in the same street, receiving a disregard of income from keeping lodgers, the Government will attract much more obloquy. The situation will lead to all sorts of heartaches because a ratepayer, especially one over 65, may find himself un-entitled to disregards while a younger person with an income from lodgers is entitled to have it disregarded.
I am sure that, in any other Bill dealing with the social services and intended to carry out the much vaunted plans and ideas of the Government, all these disregards, together with others, would be included. But for some reason the Government have decided that they will not go into the question of disregards because this would make the Bill—which is a gesture to which I pay all tribute—too complicated to work out. They decided that we must have a simple Bill.
I prophesy that a future Government—I trust that it will be Conservative—will open up the principle a little more, making the provisions more just and reasonable for those it is intended to help. At the moment, it is no more than an empty shell and will lead in many cases to benefits for some and injustices for others. It certainly will not do everything that we wish of it.

5.0 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: The Minister of Housing and Local Government has said on more than one occasion that in the Bill he is not trying to create a new social service. Last night, I listened, as I always do, with great interest and a good deal of admiration to his speech in reply to the debate on the Welfare State. I did not think it one of his best speeches, but they are always worth listening to.
The one thing which emerged was the interdependence of the various provisions made for social security, not merely what


are avowedly social security measures but housing and Bills like this one. At the beginning of yesterday's debate, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made it painfully apparent that the comprehensive review of the social services which both sides admit to be necessary would have to be put off with the Greek Kalends. There would be tinkering about, but we would have to wait until 1970, he told us, before we could hope to see a really comprehensive system to meet distress everywhere. At least, we shall have to wait until 1970 if the party opposite, by some terrible misfortune, is still responsible for our affairs.
The Bill, despite the disclaimer by the Minister, could be used to plug a great many holes and bring help to people who, for one reason or another, fall outside or fail to receive the succour they need from the comprehensive, all-embracing State welfare schemes. It could be used to bring relief in particular to people who are reluctant to apply or are not aware that they should apply or for some other reason do not apply for the help to which they would be entitled.
In new Clause 3, we make an attempt, which I freely admit is not a complete answer, to try and identify some of the categories of people for whom the Bill's provisions could be used in order to plug the gaps left by the national comprehensive schemes. It deals with Servicemen and their widows and would be particularly valuable, as I said in Committee, because it would make provision for the sort of people who are least likely to apply for relief for which they could apply. Their refusal is rooted in pride, background and the feeling that they have done the State some service and that it is not for them to apply humbly for something which the State should give them as of right. The general feeling amongst the whole population that rates are a monstrous injustice anyway removes from people the feeling that, in applying for relief from rates, they are in any way seeking charity.
Our new Clause 4 concerns charitable payments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said that charities would tend to make less help available to people if this help were merely to

reduce what they would get from the statutory authorities. If charities find themselves paying out less they will also, surely, find themselves collecting less because people will subscribe less to a charity if they feel that the money is merely to be used in order to fill a gap which would otherwise be filled by the statutory authorities.
I am sure that no one in this House would like to see the drying up of the wells of charity in this country. Even the most thorough-going Marxist on the benches opposite surely admits that there should be a part, and an expanding part, for private charity even in the most tightly organised centralised State.
New Clause 5—income disregards for those over 65—has been fully covered already. It is, perhaps, the best-drafted of the four new Clauses under consideration. It points to just about the right level in assessing want. I came across a constituency case the other day. The couple are just about at the £10 level. They are in accommodation rented from the local council and are paying a rather high rent. They are just about not making ends meet.
I asked the National Assistance Board's officers to see the couple and it did so, but said that they just did not qualify for National Assistance. It will be touch and go whether they will qualify, under the Bill as drafted, for relief of rates. The man is over 65 and he is doing a part-time job which brings in a certain income. These are precisely the sort of people who would be covered by new Clause 5. Without it, they will slip through the net.
New Clause 6—National Insurance disregards—concerns people who are in want and are suddenly hit by unforeseeable misfortune—in other words, misfortune and want strike them at the same time. This is a category of people who especially need the kind of help which only a provision of this kind can give.
On Second Reading, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill was a rough and ready measure of justice, a blunt instrument. In these four new Clauses my right hon. and hon. Friends have attempted to sharpen the instrument and I very much hope that the Minister will agree to let the instrument at least be given a cutting edge.

Mr. Oscar Murton: I want to confine my remarks to reinforcing what has already been said about new Clause 5. If ever a Clause was suitably drafted or tailor-made for a town on the south coast of England, this is it. For my constituency, which has about 12 per cent. above the national average of persons over the age of 65, this is a vital matter. Over the past few weeks, I have had many pathetic letters from old-age pensioners who say that by virtue of what they have in the way of personal investments, plus their pensions, they are just outside the datum line for the operation of this scheme They are fully aware that, by being just outside, they themselves will indirectly subsidise those who are very little worse off. In all equity, new Clause 5 would meet the case of such elderly people.
There are many towns, particularly on the south coast, where people go to retire, many living in bungalows. It is a peculiarity of the rating system that bungalows and flats are rated proportionately higher than two-storey houses. Those who go to live in them often do not realise their predicament until they have bought or rented the bungalow or flat. I have quoted a typical example which is repeated in many towns in England.
There is an added problem in my constituency because of the lack of balance between domestic rateable value and the commercial and industrial rateable value. The average ratepayer in Poole pays more rates than people in comparable accommodation in other parts of England. The Minister has heard all this before and he may feel that he need not listen to it again on this occasion, but I ask him to consider the Clause with sympathy. It would not cost much to operate, but it would bring relief to many very deserving persons.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. A. G. F. Hall-Davis: I want to address myself to new Clauses 4 and 5. When we came to the end of our Committee discussions of disregards, I did not feel encouraged that we would meet with any success if we pressed the Minister in this direction again, but after yesterday's debate, which the right hon. Gentleman sat through and

to which he replied, I have a genuine feeling of modest hope.
The right hon. Gentleman possesses some good qualities and I am sure that we would all pay tribute to them. No one would suggest that he had a heart of flint; but some of us suspect that consistency is not his most notable quality. If he has a reversible cloak and comes into the House one day in the guise of an advocate and the next day in the guise of an administrator and denies everything by action for which he has pleaded by words the day before, that is not very encouraging.
Everything which was said yesterday afternoon lends support to the basic attitude underlying these new Clauses. It was said to be the wish of the House to encourage voluntary provision. New Clause 4 would counteract what will be one of the anomalies of the administration of the Bill.
In the circular which the right hon. Gentleman sent to local authorities on 2nd February, 1966, he said that income would be defined as that which comes in—"excluding benefits in kind". If the right hon. Gentleman intends to exclude benefits in kind, he must accept a Clause similar to new Clause 4. The consequences otherwise will be that if one goes round to a needy person's back door and tips 1 cwt. or 1 ton of coal into his backyard, that will not affect his right to relief, but if one goes to the front door and puts a postal order for a similar value through it, his rent rebate will immediately be reduced.
If there is a charity which has a local Little Red Riding Hood, the local Little Red Riding Hood can go with her basket of goodies and put it on grandma's kitchen table without any harmful effect on grandma's rate relief, but if the charity is more remotely situated from the town and tries to do its good work through the post, as the postman approaches the door, there will be the right hon. Gentleman in the guise of the wolf waiting, admittedly not to snatch the whole of the contents of the envelope, but, in effect, to counteract 25 per cent. of the charitable payment going to that person. This is so illogical and will cause so much trouble and so much rearrangement by at least the conscientious charities, that something should be done on the lines suggested in Clause 4.
As it happens, new Clause 5 is closely connected with the content of yesterday's debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Sir A. Meyer) said that it was particularly well drawn. In one repect it certainly is. One of the subjects of probing discussion yesterday was occupational pension schemes. The right hon. Gentleman was not flattering about the prospects for a widespread expansion of occupational pension schemes, but as I listened to him I did not get the impression that he wanted actually to discourage them. Unless he accepts some such Clause as new Clause 5, that must be the inevitable consequence.
The right hon. Gentlman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, for whom I should have particular regard, said that the number now drawing occupational pensions was about 2 million, and he went on to say:
The amounts of pension payable range from less than 10s. a week to over £20 a week.
There then came the significant sentence:
About half of all those on occupational pensions today receive less than £2 a week…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd Feburary, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 423.]
That means that 1 million occupational pension beneficiaries receive less than £2 a week and probably one quarter of the total, or 500,000, receive £1 a week or less. If the Minister does not accept something on the lines of new Clause 5, he will be depriving certainly the 500,000 of one-quarter of the benefit of their occupational schemes.
I see that the right hon. Gentleman is looking worried. I know that he is giving something to people which they have not previously had. I accept that these people are going to be better off, not worse off. But they are going to see the effects of their savings and of their employers' ex-gratia payments to some extent counteracted because of the provisions of this Bill. This is a bad thing, for the most fundamental reasons that it discourages two tendencies which are of the greatest basic benefit to the economy of this country which we ought to be encouraging, not discouraging.

Mr. Crossman: I am grateful to hon. and right hon. Members that the repetition of this debate has been neither tedious nor too long, but has been extremely interesting. I will try to answer

the questions of all those who have spoken and who spoke as though they had no great expectation of a positive response. I am sorry that the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) left so soon after she had spoken. I would have liked to have replied to her, but no doubt she wished to deny me that pleasure. She has enabled me to point out that we have discussed this with the representatives of the treasurers and there was no doubt that the last thing that they wanted was a rebate of any kind, whether it be straight away or not. This was not, and should not have been, a decisive factor in weighing up the Measure. If I had done what they wanted I would have left everything unchanged. We are discussing something more important than the convenience of the municipal treasurers.
Both the hon. Gentleman the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) and the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Sir A. Meyer) referred to yesterday's debate. This is a very apposite comment, because we now find ourselves on opposite sides of the House for exactly the same reason in practice, on one rather narrow issue, we were yesterday evening in theory, on the general issue. This is an almost perfect example of how the two sides work out their different attitudes to a problem. Yesterday we were discussing whether we should see the big advance, as the Leader of the Opposition said, in our social security system and, in working out specially planned studies of groups in special need and the application of special assistance to them. I was interested when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough took his Clauses and showed rather ingeniously and convincingly how they hung together as a network of studies of special needs.
It would have been difficult to adopt this Measure to that end, but that is I assume what he was trying to do. I have said in Committee that if that had been our aim we would not have asked the municipal treasurers to administer it; we would simply have asked the National Assistance Board to deal with it. The right hon. Gentleman quite rightly pointed out that legal aid is administered by the National Assistance Board, although it is not part of National Assistance. This was a serious and practical


proposal and I think that a number of treasurers wanted us to hand this over to the National Assistance Board. It is something which the Board would have been horrified to do because it is not the same kind of thing. The Board is not there to administer tax concessions. It is there to assess special needs, and organise the spending of money for that purpose.
Our reform of National Assistance, announced by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, will deal with ways of looking after the hardest hit and meeting their needs, and on a much bigger scale than was suggested by the Leader of the Opposition. Yesterday, on my recollection, he said that some 7 million people should be brought within the scope of National Assistance. I gave reasons then why I thought that this was the wrong approach. I should have thought that some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen might have had doubts about whether this was the right way to administer rate rebates or to attempt to develop a special need technique. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole), who I see has also departed, said that this was the wrong way to administer a social service. From the beginning of Second Reading and throughout the Committee stage I and my hon. Friends have made it clear that this is not an extension of the social services.
It is not an attempt to assess poverty and to help. It is simply a tax concession designed to make the impact of rates less harsh on the ratepayer. It is concerned exclusively with the ratepayer and with trying to make rates a less unjust tax, just as all previous rate rebate schemes introduced voluntarily by local authorities have had that objective. It seems that, even without the incentive of 75 per cent., in some ways the treasurers should have had the foresight to have introduced this scheme years ago. It is most urgent to introduce a scheme of this kind to remove some of the grossest injustices at the bottom end of the scale and help these 2 million families by remitting some two-thirds of the rates, and lesser fractions for others. In doing so, we shall substantially reduce part of the regressive character of the rating system.
This is totally different from the improvement of a social service. We do not want to conduct our affairs like someone controlling a means-tested and carefully discriminating social service. I do not want to be misunderstood, but in a way this is a deliberately undiscriminating method. Every tax concession must be so. We must not discriminate, we must lay down a simple rule and apply it, irrespective of hard cases. I do not see any other way of making a tax concession. The real issue between us is, should this have been initially designed as an extension of National Assistance? It is a conceivable possibility, but the Board would have rejected it. If it was not designed in such a way, was it the duty of the Opposition to mould it a little more in that direction by introducing more of this notion of selective discrimination and of trying to meet as many hard cases as possible?
The hon. Member for Eton and Slough, speaking of the Service pension dealt with in new Clause 3, said that this was something which would enable us to stop up a chink in the existing arrangements for disabled Service people. I can think of no conceivably worse method of stopping up a chink in war pensions than a rate rebate. War pensions are very well and skilfully designed so that where there are difficulties and hard cases there is a most complicated system to study each case. This is a highly worked out social service, and to plump down an extra two-thirds of rates is not the way to help. One would not stop up any chink in the war pension system by applying rate rebates in this way.
I do not think that one could seriously suggest that these would improve the discriminating nature of the war pension system, or of industrial injury or disablement benefit. All of these are social services carefully studying the particular needs of those who are disabled and meeting those needs by highly discriminating payments based on an understanding of the need. On the other hand, to give a rate rebate is to give a tax concession which must be given to somebody as a ratepayer and not as somebody in need of help with their disablement. We might say that we would like to give it to these people, but it cannot be argued that it would improve the war pensions system to add this.
5.30 p.m.
I did not want a social service; I wanted a tax concession. I have made it clear to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance that I realised how deeply it would upset and disturb all her work of transforming National Assistance in preparation for the creation of the new Social Security which is going on precisely along the lines which the hon. Gentleman wants. Rate rebate must develop on its own and has to be kept firmly, even doctrinally, separate from it if it is to be administered correctly.
The argument has been adduced that I have been inconsistent because I have allowed one disregard. It has been argued that the disregard for the lodger or for the extra occupant in the house proves that since we have one disregard we might as well have a lot more. These so-called disregards are in existence only because they are cuts in the rate of tax concession. If this were not the case, relief would be given twice over. The extra person in the house is disregarded in the case of a married couple, because the rates on which the rate rebate is reckoned are reduced by one-third owing to the presence of the extra person in the house. If there are two extra people in the house, it is reduced by half, and if there are three it is reduced by three-fifths. Therefore, in each case, there is a sharp reduction.
There were two ways in which we could have dealt with this matter. We could have imposed a family means test and then assessed the rebate in terms of family means. Having turned down the idea that we should assess in terms of the means of the family because we wanted the minimum investigation before the rebate was paid, and recognising that the rebate must be given to the married couple, we said, "Since there is not to be a family means test we will have this crude, rough and ready reduction in the amount of the rates to be reckoned for the rebate owing to the presence of one, two and three lodgers". It is not true to say that these are disregards in the same sense as we talk about disregarding capital or income.
I do not want to go on too long, but I thought that since this was a very well-argued debate it would be a pity if I did not deal with certain points. There

are two further points in the arguments of the Opposition which I want to answer. First, I cannot help observing in this list what has happened as a warning. When we started this debate in Standing Committee on 10th February, there was relative agreement between the two sides. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), when asked by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary—this appears at column 296 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Standing Committee proceedings of that date—said that he appreciated that the new Clause which he had moved dealt with National Assistance disregards as a whole. We were under a misunderstanding.
It was pointed out at the next sitting of the Committee that what was meant was not National Assistance disregards but only income disregards and that capital disregards were left out. I thought that we had agreed that if we were to introduce disregards at all they would have to be National Assistance disregards as a whole or Income Tax disregards as a whole. They would have to be, in the case of National Assistance, capital as well as income disregards. I still maintain that view.
I am confirmed in that view when I begin to see what would happen if these four new Clauses became law. We would then have a third complex and confused system of new disregards—one for us, one for National Assistance and one for Income Tax. New Clause 3 proposes a complete disregard of the whole Service pension, whereas National Assistance disregards only up to 30s. and Income Tax the whole of it. So we would have an agreement with Income Tax but disagreement with National Assistance. In the case of charitable and benevolent funds, it would be on the first £1 on the rate rebate, and on 15s. on National Assistance, with no disregard on Income Tax. On new Clause 5, these are on the first 30s. or 50s. This would agree with National Assistance as regards earnings but would differ as regards unearned income. In the case of Income Tax, it is difficult to make a comparison because there are special allowances and exemptions.
When we come to sickness benefits, industrial injuries and disablement benefit, we would find ourselves in the same


boat as Income Tax with regard to sickness benefit but differing with National Assistance; and in the same boat as Income Tax with regard to industrial injury but differing with National Assistance. Disablement benefit is the sole case where we would perhaps have achieved complete harmony of disregard systems between the three.
This is what I warned the House of on Second Reading and in Committee. We had the choice of accepting the National Assistance system intact or of starting on the perilous journey of setting up a new and equally irreconcilable and conflicting system of disregards with all the difficulty that once we started there was no stopping. Listening patiently to the debate, I felt that there was no reason why six hon. Members should not have said, "If you disregard that we have six other admirable disregards". We would have merely added to the chaos.
I conclude by saying something which should not be forgotten. It refers back, once again, to yesterday's debate. I did not manage to get through all my speech yesterday, and there was one bit of it which I should like to put on record this afternoon. I had promised to reply to the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), who I am sorry is not here. He asked me, very indignantly, about the people about whom he is most concerned—those who do not receive National Insurance pensions. He was particularly concerned, rightly, not with the half who receive National Assistance but with those who do not. This is the group of people who are outside National Assistance, who do not fit in, very often an awkward group psychologically. These are people who will not go near National Assistance, people who kick against any form of means test or question. Often they are people with not so much income but a bit of capital, who would like some help and whom it is terribly difficult to fit in to a carefully discriminating means-tested assessment of genuine social need.
I should like to help these people also. On a careful consideration, I should say that more of this group of people will be assisted by rate rebates irrespective of capital, with no disregards. This will help these people because they can get assistance without any questions being asked. We must not underestimate the

advantage of this. A person would be simply asked to fill in what he has as income and no further question would be asked.
The important thing is the advantage in keeping it simple. I wanted to get it as different as possible from National Assistance, because I wanted to attract to it the 500,000 people who, the Allen Committee tells us, could have received National Assistance, who would not take it but who, we think, will get a taxpayer's right from the Treasury. This group needs to be cultivated.
The cultivation which those people require is less social service attention. They do not want to be treated as recipients of a discriminating social service. They resent the whole idea. They want to be treated as taxpayers who have a right. In the Bill, they are given a clearly defined right with no questions asked about their capital.
I know that some hon. Members on this side may regard that as a strange argument to make from this side, but these people, about whom I have been concerned as much as the hon. Member for Abingdon, have a very raw deal because they do not fit into the social service State. They are not the people who are included when one tries to operate the carefully tested social service needs which National Assistance conscientiously performs. All that these people have to do is to fill in the form to the treasurer and, if it is right, they will draw the benefit without question.

Mr. Cole: rose—

Mr. Crossman: The hon. Member did not bother to come in earlier, and I shall now finish my speech.
Those people are not to be under-rated. I again repeat that this is not for National Assistance. Not one person on National Assistance will be affected by the Bill. All the 2 million families affected will be those either who have refused to take National Assistance or who are too well off to receive it. They are precisely either these proud people, the excluded people, the better off or those who have a little money or a house and who are excluded by the National Assistance test of means. All these people are being helped. There are 2 million of them and the cost will be £29 million.
It is a fairly wide net that we have cast in helping these people. It may be that we have not cast it wide enough. It may be that the income level should be raised to £9 and £11 10s. One thing of which I am absolutely certain, however, is that we should not try to write into the Bill a complex system of disregards which requires a complex test and a complex inquiry and investigation. The kind of people with whom we are trying to deal are precisely those who resent that most of all, who have often refused the advantages of social security because they resent it and who, therefore, are more likely to be assisted by this rough and ready tax concession than by even the most well-intentioned and socially directed advance of National Assistance or, indeed, of any form of social security.

Mrs. Thatcher: We have gone a little bit wide of the point. I would not say that we have got entirely off it, but we have got a rather long way from it. May I, however, take some of the Minister's starting points and give him my approach to them.
The right hon. Gentleman has separated three systems: the Income Tax system, the rating system and National Assistance. National Assistance is quite different from the other two systems, because in National Assistance a person is asking for money. In Income Tax and rating, one is giving money, or, to put it more accurately, money is being taken away, with or without one's consent. They are, therefore, quite different. In National Assistance, a person is asking for money, whereas in the other two one has to yield up the money.
I accept, therefore, that there are more analogies between the Income Tax system and the rating system than between National Assistance and rating. Let me pursue these analogies. Any tax should be equitable. In considering whether it is equitable, one has to consider what reliefs to give in respect of the liability. We are, therefore, considering rating as a system of taxation.
5.45 p.m.
In the past, there have been only two sorts of reliefs in the rating system, one on the ground of strict poverty, which has scarcely been operated, and the other on the ground of derating, which virtually is no longer existent. We are, therefore,

considering—and the Minister is asking us to consider—for the first time a suitable system of reliefs for rating. That is what we are trying to do in this set of new Clauses.

Mr. Crossman: It is not exactly right to say that this is the first time that we are dealing with the matter. Did not the Conservative Government have their own rating relief Measure which they pushed through? This is, therefore, the second Measure. It would be interesting to compare the two and to see what the hon. Lady's side put forward as a rating relief Measure and whether it included elaborate disregards.

Mrs. Thatcher: That was a system of relief which arose particularly from revaluation. It stemmed directly from that. It did not set out to be a complete system of rating reliefs. I hope that in the end, this present proposal will be. What I am trying to say in essence is that unless we incorporate some of these new Clauses now, within two or three years some of the Minister's hon. Friends behind him will be persuading him to try to include them, just as we are trying to persuade him to put them in now.
In considering a system of rating reliefs, one can do it in two ways. One way is to use a quite new system, which is what we are trying to do, but we are trying to do it that way because the Minister has rejected the other way. We started to try to take the reliefs applicable to Income Tax because that would have been simpler. The Minister rejected that. We took an analogy with National Assistance, and the Minister rejected that system of reliefs. He therefore drove us to the only other method to consider: a special system of rating reliefs. In doing that, one must consider the practical effects of these new Clauses and the practical effects of rejecting them. In considering the new Clauses, one must recognise that the need for them proceeds along humanitarian lines.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the municipal treasurers and said that they did not want any particular system of disregards. I think that the people who will have to deal directly with the public will want a system of disregards, because it is they who will have the distasteful job of refusing rebates to people who have helped themselves or who have


compensation from the Government either for sickness, for war disability or for industrial injury disability.
New Clause 3 is designed to secure that payments made through the war pensions system to people as compensation for the injury and disablement which they suffer daily so that we may enjoy our present freedom shall be fully enjoyed by them and shall not be decreased by this rate rebate system. Compensation which is given for a particular purpose should be compensation and should not rank as income. That is all we are saying. We are not trying to fill in a chink in the war pensions system. We are saying that what people receive for a certain purpose should remain in its entirety for that purpose. That is New Clause 3.
New Clause 4, which concerns charitable payments, has been well argued. Most of us have connections with a large number of charities. We know quite well that if a person wants to give some payment to someone less fortunate than himself, he wants to ensure that, if he gives £1 a week that person will benefit by £1 and will not have 5s. of it knocked off by the local authority. Charities have great difficulty in raising the money that they do by the time-honoured methods of flag days and bazaars. If one held a bazaar in order to relieve the Exchequer of a liability, one would not raise very much money. If one held a bazaar to pay sums to the deaf, the blind, the mentally handicapped and the old, one would get money because people would think that it was going to that particular purpose. What new Clause 4 is designed to do is to say that payments made because of people's charitable qualities should go to the purpose intended, and not to relieving the Exchequer or the town hall of a liability which it has assumed under the Bill.
New Clause 5 has been described as "well drawn" and has received the greatest amount of support. Again, it has a very particular and equitable purpose. I can best describe it by saying that I well remember as long back as the election in 1945—I hasten to add, well before I was old enough to vote—going to a meeting and hearing someone talking about public assistance. He complained that, because he had saved some of his money, he could not get anything, whereas a man down the road had

spent all he had and could get everything from the State. The new Clause is designed to secure that there should still be some incentive to thrift, but that people should not be deprived of a rate rebate.
There are many ways in which people can help themselves and, in doing so, they should not deprive themselves of help by the State. There are two basic ways of helping oneself. One is by continuing to earn after one retires. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, many people do small jobs. It would be a great help if the amount which comes in from that occupation could be disregarded, otherwise anyone in that position will say to the person who is giving them the rate rebate, "If I help myself, you cease to help me." That is wrong. The other way is to make a small provision for payments after retirement, and the Clause covers both those ways in which people can help themselves. The feeling is that by helping themselves, they should still be entitled to a rate rebate.
New Clause 6 has not received a great deal of attention from hon. Members who have spoken so far. It arises in this way. Most of us have now had a good deal of correspondence from people who are the long-term sick, because they will not benefit in any way from the present proposals for increased sickness benefit made by the present Government. One feels that it might be appropriate to help them by saying that the payments which they get in respect of long-term sickness or long-term industrial disablement, which are all exempt from Income Tax, should not preclude them from getting help as ratepayers under the Bill.
Obviously the right hon. Gentleman would then say to me that they are people who would have disregards under several of these Clauses. I have considered whether we should have an overriding disregard, because, if the Minister was going to accept all these, he would be capable of drafting an overriding disregard to be put into the Bill in the other place.
May I now take the particular point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis)? There are disregards in the Bill. The disregards are for benefits in kind, but there is not much point in


taking two sacks of coal per week to a retired pensioner who can only heat his room by electricity. It is much simpler to give him £1 a week and let him do exactly what he likes with it. In his Circular, the Minister has defined "income" as that which comes in. I should have thought that some of that which came in could quite well be defined as "gift" or "capital".
Instead of giving £1 a week, supposing that a charity were to give £52 at Christmas. Is that income? I should have thought that it was a gift. Supposing the charity were to give a voucher for the grocer. Is that a benefit in kind, or income which comes in? The right hon. Gentleman already has disregards under his own circular. He must attempt to make them equitable.
He went on to say that all people have to do is fill in a form, and that they would resent these inquiries. What people resent is inquiries into their incomes, not inquiries into disregards where they are income disregards. My right hon. Friend and I have some experience of that.
Under his circular, one does not just have to fill in a form to get a rate rebate. It is a form consisting of 14 questions, and I would say that the declaration made at the end of it would not be understood by the person who signed it unless he had sat on the Committee considering the rate relief Bill. Just listen to it:
I declare that the information given on this application is accurate, to the best of my

knowledge and belief, and that during the income assessment period ended three months before the start of the rebate period, no other income was received by me (or my wife/husband) apart from that declared."

I cannot think that the average person will understand
…the income assessment period ended three months before the start of the rebate period.

I know what it means but only because I sat on the Committee for a considerable time. In addition, some of the other questions on income are much more complicated than any question which says that if a person has £1 a week from a charity, it can be disregarded and he does not need to declare it. That would be very much simpler than what the right hon. Gentleman is proposing.

Let me throw out a challenge to him. I am quite willing to put up a stake of £20 if he will put up a contrary stake of £20, and I will bet him £20 that in the next Parliament his Bill will need amending with regard to charities and income disregards. Either he must do it, or my right hon. Friend or I will have to do it, and it would be very much simpler to do it now.

If the right hon. Gentleman will not agree to put in what we would call an equitable system of tax reliefs, including some of these disregards, I very much hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will think fit to divide the House.

Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 115, Noes 127.

Division No. 34.]
AYES
[5.59 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Costain, A. P.
Hendry, Forbes


Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W.
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Higgins, Terence L.


Barlow, Sir John
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)


Batsford, Brian
Dalkeith, Earl of
Hopkins, Alan


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Dance, James
Hordern, Peter


Bell, Ronald
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alee
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame P.


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Elliott, R. w. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington)


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Emery, Peter
Iremonger, T. L.


Biggs-Davison, John
Errington, Sir Eric
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Black, Sir Cyril
Eyre, Reginald
Kerby, Capt. Henry


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.
Farr, John
Kerr, Sir Hamilton (Cambridge)


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Fletcher-Cooke, Sir John (S'pton)
Kershaw, Anthony


Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.Sir Walter
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Kimball, Marcus


Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry
Goodhart, Philip
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Goodhew, Victor
Kirk, Peter


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Grant, Anthony
Lagden, Godfrey


Buck, Antony
Griffiths, Peter (Smothwick)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.


Bullus, Sir Eric
Hall-Davit, A. G. P.
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry


Burden, F. A.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Longbottom, Charles


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Loveys, W. H.


Cole, Norman
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
McLaren, Martin


Cooke, Robert
Hay, John
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy


Corfield, F. V.
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest




Maude, Angus
Prior, J. M. L.
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Pym, Francis
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)


Mills. Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Mitchell, David
Ridsdale, Julian
Walder, David (High Peak)


Morgan, W. G.
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Russell, Sir Ronald
Walters, Dennis


Murton, Oscar
Sharpies, Richard
Ward, Dame Irene


Neave, Airey
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)
Whitelaw, William


Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Smith, John
Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley (Exeter)


Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian
Smyth, Rt. Hn. Brig. Sir John
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Page, R. Graham (Crosby)
Spearman, Sir Alexander
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Percival, Ian
Studholme, Sir Henry
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Pickthorn, Rt. Hn. Sir Kenneth
Talbot, John E.



Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. More and Mr. Younger.




NOES


Albu, Austen
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Morris, Charles (Openshaw)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Holman, Percy
Morris, John (Aberavon)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick(SheffieldPk)


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Howie, W.
Murray, Albert


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Newens, Stan


Bishop, E. S.
Hunter, A. E. (Feltham)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip(Derby, S.)


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Norwood, Christopher


Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp; Fbury)
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Oram, Albert E. (E. Ham, S.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Janner, Sir Barnett
Orme, Stanley


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Jeger, George (Goole)
Owen, Will


Chapman, Donald
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Padley, Walter


Coleman, Donald
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Palmer, Arthur


Conlan, Bernard
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Pargiter, G. A.


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn(W. Ham, S.)
Parker, John


Grossman, Rt. Hn. R. H. S.
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Perry, Ernest C.


Doig, Peter
Kenyon, Clifford
Randall, Harry


Donnelly, Desmond
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Redhead, Edward


Driberg, Tom
Lawson, George
Richard, Ivor


Edelman, Maurice
Ledger, Ron
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'c'tle-on-Tyne, C.)


Ennals, David
Loughlin, Charles
Silkin, John (Deptford)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Lubbock, Eric
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Fernyhough, E.
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Skeffington, Arthur


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
McBride, Neil
Small, William


Fletcher, Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
MacColl, James
Snow, Julian


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
MacDermot, Niall
Soskice, Rt. Hn. Sir Frank


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross&amp;Crom'ty)
Stonehouse, John


Floud, Bernard
Mackenzie, Gregor (Ruthergien)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Foley, Maurice
Mackie, George Y. (C'ness &amp; S'land)
Tomney, Frank


Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)
McLeavy, Frank
Wallace, George


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
McNamara, Kevin
Warbey, William


Freeson, Reginald
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Weitzman, David


Gourlay, Harry
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Wellbeloved, James


Grey, Charles
Mallalleu, E. L. (Brigg)
Whitlock, William


Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Wilkins, W. A.


Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Mapp, Charles
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Maxwell, Robert
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Hamling, William (Woolwich, W.)
Mayhew, Christopher
Wyatt, Woodrow


Harper, Joseph
Mellish, Robert
Zilliacus, K.


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Millan, Bruce



Hazell, Bert
Monslow, Walter
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Ifor Davies and Mr. McCann.

New Clause.—(INCOME DISREGARDS FOR THOSE OVER 65.)

For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of section 5 of this Act, there shall be left out of account the first thirty shillings a week of the income of a single person aged 65 or over, and the first fifty shillings a week of the income of a married couple one of

whom is aged 65 years or over.—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 111, Noes 125.

Division No. 35.]
AYES
[6.8 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Bennett, Sir Frederie (Torquay)
Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.Sir Walter


Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W.
Berry, Hn. Anthony
Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry


Barlow, Sir John
Biggs-Davison, John
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)


Batsford, Brian
Black, Sir Cyril
Bruce-Gardyne, J.


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.
Buck, Antony


Bell, Ronald
Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Bullus, Sir Eric




Burden, F. A.
Hopkins, Alan
Page, R. Graham (Crosby)


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Hordern, Peter
Percival, Ian


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Hornby, Richard
Pickthorn, Rt. Hn. Sir Kenneth


Cole, Norman
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame P.
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Cooke, Robert
Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington)
Prior, J. M. L.


Costain, A. P.
Iremonger, T. L.
Pym, Francis


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver
Kerby, Capt. Henry
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Curran, Charles
Kerr, Sir Hamilton (Cambridge)
Ridsdale, Julian


Dance, James
Kershaw, Anthony
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)


Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Kimball, Marcus
Russell, Sir Ronald


Elliott, R. W. (n'c'stle-upon-Tyne, N.)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Sharples, Richard


Emery, Peter
Kirk, Peter
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntfd &amp; Chiswick)


Errington, Sir Eric
Lagden, Godfrey
Smith, John


Eyre, Reginald
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Farr, John
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Studholme, Sir Henry


Fletcher-Cooke, Sir John (s'pton)
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)
Talbot, John E.


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Longbottom, Charles
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Goodhart, Philip
Loveys, Walter H.
Taylor, Edward M. (g'gow, Cathcart)


Goodhew, Victor
mclaren, Martin
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Grant, Anthony
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Thompson, Sir Richard(Croydon, S.)


Griffiths, Peter (Smethwick)
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Walder, David (High Peak)


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Maude, Angus
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Ward, Dame Irene


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Whitelaw, William


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley (Exeter)


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Mitchell, David
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Hay, John
Morgan, W. G.
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Murton, Oscar
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Hendry, Forbes
Neave, Airey



Higgins, Terence L.
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian
Mr. More and Mr. Younger.




NOES


Albu, Austen
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Morris, John (Aberavon)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Holman, Percy
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick(sheffieldpk)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Murray, Albert


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Newens, Stan


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Hunter, A. E. (Feltham)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)


Bishop, E. S.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip(Derby, S.)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Norwood, Christopher


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Oram, Albert E. (E. Ham, S.)


Brown, R. W. (Shorediteh &amp; Fbury)
Janner, Sir Barnett
Orme, Stanley


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Owen, Will


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Padley, Walter


Chapman, Donald
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Pargiter, G. A.


Coleman, Donald
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn(W, Ham, S.)
Parker, John


Conlan, Bernard
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Perry, Ernest G.


Crossman, Rt. Hn. R. H. S.
Kenyon, Clifford
Randall, Harry


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Kerr, Dr. David (w'worth, Central)
Redhead, Edward


Doig, Peter
Lawson, George
Richard, Ivor


Donnelly, Desmond
Ledger, Ron
Short, Rt. Hn. E. (n'c'tle-on-Tyne, C.)


Driberg, Tom
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Silkin, John (Deptford)


Edelman, Maurice
Loughlin, Charles
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lubbock, Eric
Skeffington, Arthur


Ennals, David
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Small, William


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
mcbride, Neil
Snow, Julian


Fernyhough, E.
mccann, J.
Soskice, Rt. Hn. Sir Frank


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
maccoll, James
Stonehouse, John


Fletcher, Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
macdermot, Niall
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross&amp;Crom'ty)
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mackie, George Y. (c'ness &amp; s'land)
Tomney, Frank


Floud, Bernard
Mackie, John (Enfield, E.)
Wallace, George


Foley, Maurice
mcleavy, Frank
Warbey, William


Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)
mcnamara, Kevin
Weitzman, David


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Wellbeloved, James


Freeson, Reginald
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Whitlock, William


Gourlay, Harry
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Wilkins, W. A.


Grey, Charles
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Mapp, Charles
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Maxwell, Robert
Wyatt, Woodrow


Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Mayhew, Christopher
Zilliacus, K.


Hamling, William (Woolwich, W.)
Mellish, Robert



Harper, Joseph
Millan, Bruce
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Monslow, Walter
Mr. Ifor Davies and Mr. Howie.


Hazell, Bert
Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

Clause 1.—(RIGHT TO PAY RATES ON DWELLING IN ENGLAND OR WALES BY INSTALMENTS.)

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 41, at the end to insert:
Provided that, where the notice under the said subsection (1) is given after the service of a demand note for rates for the rate period in which the effective date of that notice falls, the requirements of paragraph (a) of this subsection shall be deemed to be satisfied if that demand note included the statement required in consequence of the notice.
There are two circumstances in which payment by instalments—a question that we are now back on, after our adventures—can be claimed as of right. The first is the case where a notice is given before the demand. That presents no difficulties. The other is where the notice is given after the demand. Then the local authority, having received the notice, has to provide certain particulars in the statement which has to be made in response to the notice.
This has caused special difficulties in the case of all those authorities whom we wish to encourage, namely, the mechanised authorities and, particularly, the computerised authorities. They, through their computers, put on to the rate claimed many particulars, including particulars of the instalments to be made. Under the Bill as at present drafted, it would be necessary for them to re-issue the particulars, which would be a waste of time and a discouragement to modernisation, which the Government have so much at heart.
Therefore, the Amendment proposes that, if the particulars are on the rate claim form, they do not have to be given later, in response to the notice. I think that everyone would agree that this is a businesslike approach.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 4, line 13, to leave out "that subsection" and to insert:
the said subsection (1) in accordance with subsection (2)(a) of this section".
This is a drafting Amendment to make it clear that a ratepayer who defaults on the payment of an instalment and whose notice is thereupon cancelled is not entitled to give a fresh notice in the same year but has to wait and make another application in the three-month period 1st

February-30th April or give notice to pay by instalments in the next year. This makes it clear for the avoidance of doubt.

Mr. Cole: I rise only to clear up a doubt. I think the Parliamentary Secretary read the word "main" instead of "said". I think he meant to say "said", but I wanted to be clear that that is what we are voting on.

Mr. MacColl: Mr. MacColl indicated assent. Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2.—(RIGHT TO PAY RATES ON DWELLING IN SCOTLAND BY INSTALMENTS.)

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 4, line 39, to leave out "local".
With characteristic generosity—

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

6.22 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Consoliated Fund Act, 1966.
2. Church of England Convocations Act, 1966.

Orders of the Day — RATING BILL

As Amended (in the Standing Committee), again considered.

6.35 p.m.

Dr. Mabon: This is a drafting Amendment which I have discussed with the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry). As the result of an Amendment which was made in Committee, the Clause was arranged containing its present wording. With their characteristic generosity and good grace, the Government have decided, despite our advice in Committee not to make the Amendment, to allow the Amendment to remain. However, in the interests of conformity—since the words "rating authority" are unqualified by the word "local" elsewhere in the Bill—we propose the Amendment. We do so without


reflection on the wording originally proposed by the hon. Member for Aberdeen-shire, West and I hope that the House will therefore agree to the deletion of the word "local".

Mr. Forbes Hendry: This is not a momentous Amendment. It reflects, as the hon. Gentleman said, on an Amendment which was made in Committee. That Amendment was drafted by me. I would have accepted that my drafting was perhaps imperfect, although the hon. Gentleman has not said that. I gather that he is seeking to achieve uniformity. Although I prefer the wording of the Clause as it stands, I reciprocate the generosity to which he referred and accept the Amendment without further question.

Amendment agreed to.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move, Amendment No. 4, in page 5, line 17 at the end to insert:
Provided that where a notice given under this subsection by any person ceases to be in force as aforesaid that person shall not be entitled to give another such notice so as to entitle him to receive, under the next following subsection, an instalments statement relating to the period of twelve months commencing with 1st November next following the date when the first-mentioned notice ceased to be in force.
This Amendment was pressed on us in consultations we had with local authorities in relation to other undertakings I gave in Committee, particularly concerning a later Amendment about the 21 days' notice which we discussed in Committee. The authorities represented to us that we should strengthen the provision in this matter so that there could be no abuse of the position. We have given careful thought to the matter and the Amendment is the result.
Its effect will be to prevent a ratepayer who has not kept up his instalments during the 12 month instalment period, and has subsequently had his notice cancelled by the rating authority, from giving a notice for the next 12 month period.
The Amendment is of particular relevance in Scottish circumstances because of the timetable in Scotland compared with England. Scottish authorities are worried in case a ratepayer who has entered on instalment arrangements in a particular November pays the rates due

for the year ending in the following May, over the last six months of the year, but then does not continue with the payment of rates by instalments by making the appropriate payments to account in the months from May to November. Subsequently he may again give an instalment notice and pay his next year's rates over the last six months of the year.
We agree that it is unfair to rating authorities that this position should exist, and one hopes that very few people will abuse the system in that way.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Amendment No. 6 is not selected, but I think that it would be for the convenience of the House if we discussed Amendment No. 6 with Amendment No. 5, which I propose to call in a moment, and also Amendments Nos. 7 8 and 9.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 5, line 19, to leave out from "given" to "and" in line 20 and to insert:
in any year at any time between the commencement of the year and the expiration of the period of twenty-one days beginning with the day on which the person receives the demand note for the rates for that year in respect of the hereditament to which the notice relates".
You have advised us, Mr. Speaker, to have a discussion involving Amendments Nos. 5, 8 and 9, as well as Amendment No. 6, which you say has not been selected and Amendment No. 7. I did not quite follow whether we were to take Amendment No. 7 as well because, with respect, that Amendment deals with a rather different issue, and one might take Amendment No. 15 with it.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—not Amendment No. 7.

Dr. Mabon: I am obliged, Mr. Speaker.
The effect of Amendments Nos. 5, 8 and 9—and I should also like to comment on Amendment No. 6—is to enable notice of election to pay rates by instalments to be given at any time between the start of the financial year and up to 21 days after the ratepayer has received his demand note. Under the Bill as it stands, notice can be given only during September and October. In Committee I undertook to see whether we


could find a way to extend the period during which notice could be given, as it was thought essential that ratepayers should not lose the right to opt to pay by instalments before receiving their rate demand notes and know what rates were due from them. The limit for giving notice has been set at 21 days after receipt of the demand note. We thought that this was the best arrangement, and we have naturally discussed the subject with the local authorities.
I am sorry that the Government could not have seen their way to accept Amendment No. 6 A suggestion was made in Committee to take the date back as far into the year as 30th November, but most local authorities had a real objection to that being done. It is, indeed, the intention of some local authorities to try to bring nearer to the beginning of the rating year the date on which demand notes are issued. I am told that the reason for this sincere desire on their part is that increasing mechanisation in their offices is expected to enable them to speed up this process, and it is, of course, very much in their financial interests to try to secure this.
To be fair to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry), I saw that the matter was raised with the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants, which body also endorsed the view advanced by a number of authorities that dating to 30th November, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, would embarrass them to some extent, and would certainly embarrass them in their commendable efforts to try to speed up the issue of demand notes. In view of that advice, and the Government's own predilection, we stick to the Amendment, which I hope will be accepted as an earnest of our good faith. I hope that the hon. Member will agree that it is a fair effort in the circumstances.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Hendry: I am most grateful to the Under-Secretary for his endeavour to meet the arguments put earlier on this subject. Amendment No. 6 was a genuine attempt to simplify the wording of the Government's own Amendment. I take his point, and I am extremely glad to hear that local authorities in Scotland are trying to speed up the issue of rate demand notices, because the situation in

Scotland is very unsatisfactory at the moment. I chose 30th November in order to try to get a definite date.
My objection to the idea of 21 days after receipt of rate notices was that it was an indeterminate date. A ratepayer might go to his local authority and deny that he had ever received a demand note for rates. That is a possibility. It is not unlikely that certain ratepayers would be away from home when the rate notices were issued. Mistakes can occur with the post. Sometimes these things are never received. I was trying to find a date which would approximate as far as possible to the date the Government had in mind. It might be worthwhile considering later further amending this Measure to make the date 21 days after issue of notice rather than the date of receipt of notice, though it is, of course, impossible to do that now. Nevertheless, I put that idea into the hon. Gentleman's mind. With those comments, I commend the Amendments.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Amendment No. 7 is a paving Amendment for Amendment No. 15. I think that with Amendment No. 7 we might debate Amendment No. 15 and the two Amendments to it standing in the name of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry)—in line 2, leave out "within twenty-one days", and in line 6, leave out from "November" to "if" in line 7, and insert "in that year".

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 5, line 22, after "shall" to insert:
 (subject to subsection (6A) of this section)".
Amendment No. 15 is equivalent to Amendment No. 1, which we discussed earlier and which related to payment by instalments in England and Wales. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary undertook to look at the possibility of simplifying the procedure relating to notices and statements and, as a result, tabled that earlier Amendment, on which I am glad to learn no adverse comment was made. I shall, therefore, not burden the Committee with too much talk except to say that we welcome a similar adaptation, and this Amendment is so prepared.
I am happy to tell the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) that I strongly advise the Committee to accept both of his Amendments. They


are really a commendable improvement on the Government's original Amendment. The draftsmen who assist us in these matters are much indebted to the hon. Gentleman for seeing more clearly than they just what the Government sought to achieve. I hope that, in that happy frame of mind, the House can quickly come to agreement on the Amendment.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Forbes Hendry—triumphantly.

Mr. Hendry: I simply confine myself to thanking the Under-Secretary for his recommendations of the House. I am very glad that I have been able at least to shorten his Bill.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I am glad to note the Government's attitude to my hon. Friend's Amendments, and rather surprised, because, while I hoped that they would accept them, I was not sure that they would be able to accept the second one, and had intended to recommend his advice on this. I now congratulate my hon. Friend on a very good bit of drafting.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 5, line 25, leave out from "November" to second "the" in line 26 and insert:
in the year in which the notice is given".
In line 34, leave out from "November" to end of line 35 and insert:
in the year in which the notice is given".—

[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

5
(6A) Where a notice under subsection (1) of this section is given in respect of an hereditament within twenty-one days after the service of a demand note for any rates in respect of that hereditament for the first year to which the notice relates, nothing insubsection (2) of this section shall require the rating authority to send to the person who gave the notice an instalments statement relating to the period of twelve months commencing with 1st November next following, or (as the case may be) coinciding with or last preceding, the date of the notice, if that demand note included the information which (apart from this subsection) would have been required to be given in an instalments statement relating to that period of twelve months in consequence of the notice; and in that case the demand note shall be deemed for the purpose of the following provisions of this subsection to be an instalments statement.—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]


10

Question proposed, That those words be there inserted in the Bill.

Amendments to the proposed words made: In line 2, leave out "within twenty-one days".

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 12, in page 6, line 34, to leave out from "accordingly" to the end of line 39.

Mr. Speaker: I understand that it will be for the convenience of the House to take with this Amendment, Amendments Nos. 14 and 16.

Dr. Mabon: This group of Amendments is designed to simplify and improve a rating authority's powers to adjust an instalments statement to take account of any change or likely change in the amount of rates due. For example, where an authority receives in May an application for a rate rebate from an old-age pensioner, the instalments could be adjusted forthwith before the rebate is formally granted when the rate poundage is determined several months later. The previous provisions were at the end of subsections (5) and (6) and were not very comprehensive. They are deleted by these Amendments.

Mr. Hendry: I have had the advantage of discussing these Amendments with the Under-Secretary. I understood him to have some misgivings about the obscurity of the verbiage, but I believe that these Amendments improve and clarify the Bill. I therefore commend them to the House.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 6, line 45, leave out from "same" to end of line 3 on page 7.—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

Amendment proposed: In page 7, line 3, at end insert:

In line 6, leave out from "November" to "if" in line 7 and insert "in that year".—[Mr. Hendry.]

Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

Further Amendment made: In page 7, line 3, at end insert:
(6B) Where, after sending an instalments statement, the rating authority are satisfied that there has been, or may be, any change in the amount the occupier is, or will be, liable to pay by way of rates in respect of the hereditament in question for the balance of the period of twelve months to which the instalments statement relates, the rating authority may by a further statement in writing make such adjustments as they think necessary in the amounts of the remainder of the instalments to which the instalments statement relates.—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 7, line 26, to leave out "section" and to insert "subsection".
This is purely a drafting Amendment. In fact notices given by ratepayers or a rating authority to discontinue an instalments arrangement will be given under this subsection (8) in particular, and the Amendment is designed to correct the drafting of this provision.

Amendment agreed to.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 18, in page 7, line 31 to leave out subsection (9).
This is consequential on the new Clause on selective discounts. This subsection which provides that ratepayers paying by instalments under the rating Bill are not to receive discount under existing powers must be omitted if the new Clause proposed by the Government is accepted. Under the new Clause householders paying rates by instalments in Scotland are not to be excluded from receiving discount provided that they pay their full rates by the date determined by their local authority.
For clarification I should say that because of the time table of the local authority financial year in Scotland local authorities do not get their rates in before 1st November at the earliest. They might therefore be prepared to allow discount for payments round about that date. It would obviously be unjust to allow discount to householders who paid their rates by lump sum before this date but not to those who might have paid instalments on account of rates over the previous months and met the balance of the total amount due before the specified date. This might, however, be the

effect of subsection (9) and therefore it should be deleted.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3.—(RIGHT TO REBATE IN RESPECT OF RATES ON DWELLING.)

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 19, in page 8, line 10, to leave out "subsection (2)" and to insert "subsections (2) and (6A)".

Mr. Speaker: I am advised that it would be convenient also to discuss Amendments Nos. 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 and 38.

Mr. MacColl: I am afraid you have rather outpaced me, Mr. Speaker. Certainly Amendment No. 22 goes very conveniently with Amendments Nos. 19 and 21 because those two Amendments are paving Amendments for Amendment No. 22. Perhaps we could discuss these three together. Then the House will be clear on what this is all about.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, if the House agrees.

Mr. MacColl: This Amendment deals with the question of joint occupation. My right hon. Friend said in Committee that he would look into it a little further. As a result of our considerations, we have produced this subsection. Where a husband and wife are normally occupying a house they may have a lease in their joint names, but they are not normally joint occupiers for rating purposes. I am advised that in order for there to be a joint occupation for rating purposes the husband must not exercise an undue degree of control over the household arrangements but share them equally with the wife. These are technicalities into which I will not go.
I understand that it is very uncommon for there to be a joint occupation for rating purposes although it could happen. It is perhaps more common a case which was quoted in the discussion. That is the case of two sisters who inherit a house from their parents and inherit jointly and never divide the property or sell the furniture but continue to occupy. They may be joint occupiers. The procedure is that where the husband and wife are joint occupiers either of them may apply for the rebate but only one can get the rebate. Once the application is made by one of them it is treated as the application of both. The income floor for the


purpose is £260, that is to say the limit applying to a married couple.
In the case of two joint occupiers who are not husband and wife—such as two sisters—each applies separately and therefore the rates are halved between the two. They apply and each can claim the £208 being the allowance for the individual person. Although this sounds complicated it is the best way round the difficulty suggested in Committee. I hope it will commend itself to the House.

Amendment agreed to.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 20, in page 8, line 41, at the end to insert:
Provided that the rating authority may in any particular case determine that the amount aforesaid shall not be reduced under this subsection, or shall be reduced by a lesser sum than that provided for by this subsection, if they are satisfied that it is reasonable and proper so to do having regard to the reason for the application being made after the expiration of the month referred to in paragraph (a)(ii) or, as the case may be, paragraph (b) of this subsection, and to any difference between the amount aforesaid and what that amount would have been if the application had been made immediately before the expiration of that month.
The Amendment is again a change in the Bill of some substance, because it deals with the problem of retrospective treatment of late applications. Under the Bill as at present drafted, if an applicant is late in applying for rebate the application cannot be treated retrospectively and is divided proportionately according to the date when the application is made. The local authorities—and this is a tribute to them, because it shows that they are not bureaucratically minded about this—have said quite strongly that they think they should have the power, in cases where it is desirable, to deal retrospectively with a late application. They do not want to shelter behind the rigidity of being able to say, "You made your application and only from that time onwards can you have the rebate".
How the proviso works is that in a particular case the local authority may decide that the rebate shall not be reduced under the normal working of the subsection, or shall be reduced by a lesser amount, if it is satisfied that it is reasonable and proper so to do having regard to the reason for the application being

made after the expiration of the month referred to. So in fact the local authority has a discretion to satisfy itself that it is a reasonable application. Once satisfied it can proceed to deal with it. This is certainly a liberalising of the Bill, and I hope that it will meet with approval.

Mr. Woodhouse: This Amendment gives effect to the intention of an Amendment which I tabled in Committee. Therefore, I am grateful to the Minister for proposing it. Local authorities will by the Amendment have a considerably enlarged discretion, which I am glad to know they will welcome. I would only like to ask the Minister one question. The Amendment empowers the local authority to exercise its discretion having regard to two things, of which the second is expounded in the words from
any difference between the amount aforesaid
to the end of the Amendment. I am not always clear in my mind about the effects of the subtleties of Parliamentary draftsmanship, and I would just like to ask the Minister whether the words in the last few lines of the Amendment have the effect of prescribing a precise arithmetical formula by which the local authority's power of remission is to be exercised, or whether it is open to the local authority at its discretion to fix whatever amount it regards as equitable.

Mr. MacColl: The effect of these words is to open up the past situation of the applicant and it is necessary to look at the applicant's position, which may have changed as a result of the late application. The position may have changed from what it would have been. The local authority must look at the position as it was. The rebate remains a mathematical figure. Once the facts are determined, the amount of rebate is known, but the facts would have to be ascertained.

Amendments agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 9, line 19, at beginning insert:
Subject to subsection (6A) of this section".
In line 40, at end insert:
(6A) Where two or more persons are joint occupiers of a hereditament such as is mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b), or joint tenants of such a part thereof as is mentioned in paragraph (c), of subsection (3) of this section, then, for the purposes of rebates under this section each of those persons shall be treated


separately as if he were the sole occupier of the hereditament or, as the case may be, sole tenant of that part thereof, except that where a husband and wife are such joint occupiers or tenants a rebate may be granted to either but not to both of them.—[Mr. MacColl.]

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 23, in page 10, line 36, at the end to insert:
(bb) for subsection (6) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—
(6) Where the rating authority have received from any person a rebate application in respect of the rebate period beginning with 16th May in any year (in this subsection referred to as ' the first period ') and have no reason to believe that there has been, or is likely by 16th September in that year to be, any material change in that person's circumstances which is relevant to the calculation of any rebate in respect of the next succeeding rebate period (in this subsection referred to as ' the second period'), they may not later than 15th September in that year notify that person in writing that, unless a rebate application in respect of the second period is received by them from that person before the beginning of the second period, they propose, on the assumption that there has been no change in his relevant circumstances, to treat the application as a rebate application in respect of the second period as well as the first period; and if no application in respect of the second period is received before the beginning of the second period, the authority may grant a rebate in respect of that period, calculated on the assumption aforesaid, and that person shall not be entitled to make a rebate application in respect of that period after the beginning of that period".
The reason for the suggested substitution of this subsection is to put Scottish authorities for their convenience in the same position as English authorities. The effect of the Amendment is to enable rating authorities in Scotland to assume, as is provided in subsection (6) for English authorities, that a person's circumstances will remain the same in the second, as in the first, of the year's rebate periods. The difficulty in subsection 6 as drafted at present is that it is provided that authorities may assume that there has been no change in circumstances only in cases where they have actually granted a rebate for the first rebate period in the year. Because rate poundages are not generally fixed in Scotland until the autumn, many Scottish local authorities may not have actually granted rebates by the last date—15th September in most cases—for notifying rebate applicants of their assumption about

circumstances remaining the same as in the first rebate period.
Amendment No. 24, if I am in order in mentioning it now, is consequential and is simply an adaptation to accommodate rating authorities whose financial years do not start on 16th May. I am thinking in particular of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Mr. G. Campbell: We recognise the difficulties of trying to translate this for Scottish purposes, because of the different dates. We are grateful for this explanation from the Under-Secretary. We realise it makes for very complicated wording, but we accept what he has said.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 10, line 40, at end insert:
and in subsection (6) of this section, as substituted by paragraph (bb) above, references to 16th May, 15th September and 16th September shall be construed in relation to such hereditaments as are mentioned in paragraph (a)(ii) above as references respectively to 29th May, 28th September and 29th September; and in relation to such hereditaments as are mentioned in paragraph (a)(iii) above as references respectively to 1st June, 30th September and 1st October".—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

Clause 4.—(RECKONABLE RATES.)

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 25, in page 10, line 44, to leave out "subsections (4) and (5)" and to insert: "the provisions".
I suggest that it will be for the convenience of the Committee if with this Amendment we discuss Amendments Nos. 26, 27, 29 and 30. Amendments Nos. 25 and 29 are paving Amendments for Amendment No. 30, which is the substantial Amendment, in page 12, line 13 to leave out "being counted as half a person)" and insert:
who is not a child of the applicant or in the applicant's care being disregarded, and any child not falling to be disregarded being counted as half a person).
(4A) In the case of a rebate application by one or two or more joint occupiers or, as the case may be, joint tenants, subsection (4) of this section shall have effect as if for the words ' one other person who is either the spouse or a relative of the applicant' there were substituted the words ' the applicant's spouse, if any'.
(4B) If any of the additional persons referred to in subsection (4) of this section represents


to the rating authority that he has no income and the authority are satisfied that the representation is true, the authority shall make no reduction under that subsection in respect of that person.
(4c) Where a rebate application in respect of, or of part of, a hereditament is made by a person who did not become entitled to make it until more than one month after the beginning of the rebate period to which it relates then—

(a) if the rating authority to whom the application is made are satisfied that, for that rebate period, the applicant has made or is liable to make (and neither is nor will be entitled to recover) a payment by way of rates or rent entitling him to apply for a rebate in respect of, or of part of, some other hereditament, the amount of the applicant's reckonable rates shall be increased by that sum or £3 15s., whichever is the less;
(b) in any other case, the amount of the applicant's reckonable rates shall be increased by an amount bearing the same proportion to £3 15s. as the part of the rebate period to which the application relates falling before the date when the applicant became entitled to make it bears to the whole of that period".

Amendment No. 30 seeks to delete certain words and to insert a very substantial number of words. This has come out as a glorious composite hand-out covering a number of different points, all of which are reasonable and consistent with our earlier discussions. The first point deals with the excluding from the household fraction, which is the abatement of the reckonable rates because of other people in the household, of those children who are not children of the applicant but of someone else in the house. It is obviously sensible and helpful to the applicant.
Subsection (4A) follows from the discussions on joint occupiers and deals with the particular difficulty that normally under page 12, line 7, where there is a relative acting as the housekeeper in the place of the spouse, the rates are not abated for that relative. This separates them from the joint occupiers and makes it clear that each joint occupier whether a relative or not will reduce the other's reckonable rates by half, which is what we were discussing before.
Subsection (4B) again modifies the household fraction. It deals with the case of a person who would abate the fraction but who has no income. This was discussed in Committee, and, as a result of our examination of the point, we

think that what is here proposed is a reasonable way of tackling it. The proposal is that, if someone goes himself to the rating authority and says that he has no income and the authority is satisfied that that is true, it will not make the reduction. This is to get over the difficulty of a means test. In other words, it is the individual himself who goes along and says that he has no income.
Subsection (4c) deals with a case raised in Committee by the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse), that of the person who changes his house during the same period and who, according to the Bill, would have to pay the minimum of £3 15s. in each case. That point is now removed from the Bill.
I think that those are the main matters covered by this group of Amendments, and I commend them to the House.

Mr. Speaker: May I say here that I have selected also the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) to Government Amendment No. 30, in subsection (4B), to leave out "and" and to insert:
or only such income as he receives from the applicant and if".
The hon. Gentleman may say a word about that Amendment in this general discussion. We will put it formally at the appropriate place if necessary.

Mr. Allason: I am grateful to the Government for meeting one of the points which I made in Committee, which was to allow a dependant to be disregarded. But the definition of a dependant is rather tight here. The dependant must have no income at all. In fact, there is a fairly clear understanding of who a dependant is, and my Amendment in Committee did not require a definition of "dependant" because I took it to be well known.
The Government, in pinning it down to someone who has no income whatever, will raise difficulties. I think, for example, of the young man who has had polio or who is quite incapable of doing any work at all. While he is a child, he has no income and any additional family income which comes in on his behalf from National Assistance will go to the parents. But the moment he reaches a certain age—18 I think—he has to claim National Assistance for himself. At this stage, he will receive an income and,


presumably will thereby be debarred as a dependant under the Clause. This is a pity. He is not the same sort of person as the lodger from whom we are distinguishing him.
I notice that the dependant must himself apply. Some of these people will hardly be capable of making an application. The mentally ill, for example, will not be able to fill in an elaborate form. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us that the form of application for rate rebate will have at the bottom a place for a further certificate to be signed saying, "I, living at the above house, hereby declare that I have no income". Such a person could then put his mark on it and it would be sufficient for the purpose of the application. It should appear on the same piece of paper as the main application. If this cannot be done, would it not be better if the applicant for rate rebate could himself certify on behalf of the person who has no income?
7.15 p.m.
I am disappointed that one disregard still remains, namely, the one other relative. The income of husband and wife is assessed jointly and, if it is above £520 a year, they will not receive the full debate. A single person, on the other hand, is entitled to have one relative with him, and this relative may be a very wealthy person. That income is not taken into account. The Government have not yet made out a case to show why this further relative should be allowed as a disregard. When we were discussing disregards a little time ago, the Minister said that all disregards were set off in some way or other. But here is a disregard which is not set off. It is a totally unnecessary disregard and one which will give rise to a lot of hard feeling.
Otherwise, I welcome the introduction of provisions in respect of dependants in the way which I suggested in Committee.

Mr. Woodhouse: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) that these Amendments represent a considerable improvement in the Bill but they could go a little further. Amendment No. 30 incorporates two points which I sought to make by Amendment in Committee,

that is, in subsections (4B) and (4C) respectively. I have a small Amendment to subsection (4B) to which I shall come in a moment.
For the purpose of clarification, I have a question to put on subsection (4C). Why is the adjustment which is now conceded, and which I sought in Committee, to be restricted to those who change house after the first month of the rebate period? I think that that is the effect of the opening words of the subsection, and I want to know what is the justification for that restriction.
Turning back to subsection (4B), I must say in passing that I am always puzzled by Parliamentary draftsmanship—I was puzzled by it when I was a Minister myself—and, on finding the reference to subsection (4) in this subsection, I automatically start looking somewhere else in the Bill for subsection (4). But, to my surprise, I find that I am already in the middle of subsection (4). Indeed, the words
referred to in subsection (4)
seem to raise the logical puzzle of the proposition referring to itself with which you, Mr. Speaker, as a doctor of philosophy, will be familiar and to which I was first introduced by the Minister of Housing and Local Government when he was my tutor at Oxford.
Without wishing to press the Minister on that point, perhaps I may now come to my proposed Amendment to the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment No. 30, in page 12, line 13. The sort of case I have in mind is not quite the same as that put by my hon. Friend, although I support what he has said. The case I want the Minister to consider is that of an old lady who is a semi-invalid and who would be living alone if she did not engage a companion help in the house. It seems to me that, as the Government Amendment is drafted, her rebate would be unaffected only so long as she refrained from making any payment at all in respect of her companion's services. If she were to pay her companion even so little as £10 a year, then her rebate entitlement would be reduced.
If the old lady is, in the current phrase "affluent", she will not be entitled presumably to a rebate anyway but here I am considering a case of genuine hardship and I am sure that the Minister would agree that this is not a purely


hypothetical case but one which could arise in practice. Such a case of genuine hardship would, I believe, be covered if my Amendment were accepted.

Mr. Hall-Davis: I felt very unhappy about this Clause in Committee and while I appreciate that the Government Amendment will obviate the harmful effect on the rebate of someone living in the house who has no income, I still feel that this is the shakiest Clause from the point of view of logic and of justice in practice.
I do not think that one can claim that the Amendment creates an entirely satisfactory position even now in respect of lodgers or even of shared or joint households. We have discussed this at great length so I shall be brief. Let us take the case of a married couple with one lodger and an income of only £450 a year. They are £70 within the figure for qualification for maximum relief, yet the presence of the lodger will deprive them of one third of the relief. For an increase in income applying with the same effect, they would have to have an increased income on £450 of £110. I think that this sum is considerably more than most people would regard as accruing to a household of that kind through the presence of a lodger. Such a couple would be unlikely to be benefiting from a lodger's contribution to that extent.
It seems to me that, while the right hon. Gentleman has at all times striven to maintain simplicity in the administration of the Bill, he perhaps carries it a little too far in some respects. In this Clause, the only really satisfactory answer would have been to give those with really small incomes and with lodgers in the house an option as to whether or not the present provisions should apply or to have the lodger's presence calculated as an increase in income of £1 a week. This would mean that those whose income was quite substantially below the level of maximum benefit would not lose a half or one third of the rebate merely by the presence of the lodger, who probably was not, in fact, bringing them—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman but it seems that he is now talking about the Clause itself and another Amendment that he might seek to make to it, rather than the Amendments we are discussing.

Mr. Hall-Davis: I am sorry if I strayed, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to express my feeling that the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment goes only a small part of the way to meet the views I expressed in Committee and therefore I cannot give it unqualified support.

Sir A. Meyer: I seek clarification. I am completely fogged on the question of joint occupation. I raised this subject in Committee and the Minister gave me a reply which doubled my confusion. I was stating the case of two sisters in joint occupation, and the right hon. Gentleman replied:
May I start with the case of the two sisters? They have both got to apply. I now have to reveal something very mysterious because under Clause 4(4) each disqualifies the other for half the rebate. However, I will make absolutely sure that they really do, because it does sound to me very mysterious.
—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 3rd February, 1966; c. 195.]
I wondered then whether I had not misheard the right hon. Gentleman. I thought that he must have used the words "do not". I think, however, that the Minister said that each sister would disqualify the other for 50 per cent., or words to that effect.
I am entirely lost and I wonder if the Joint Parliamentary Secretary can give us an illustration so that we can see how it will work out in practice that two sisters with joint occupancy who would otherwise be entitled to some rebate will not get anything because there are two of them.

Mr. MacColl: The first point raised concerned a person on National Assistance. If he was over 18 years of age, he would be getting National Assistance allowances which would include something towards his living expenses and his apportioned share of the rates. In Committee the case was raised of a person on National Assistance who, for some reason or another, had no resources but was an adult kept in the household. Under the original draft, he was counted as a separate person and it is to meet this point that we propose this change.
I was also asked about a mentally afflicted person who might be unable to fill in a form. When that was mentioned, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland murmured something to me about curator bonis. I think he meant


that if a person is mentally afflicted there are provisions in the mental health laws to ensure that his needs can be looked alter and application made on his behalf. I should not think that aspect something about which we need worry in this Bill.
Then there was the case of the relative living in the household. I am sorry about this. Worry has been expressed about the possibility of a household means test. We certainly do not want that and that is why we have chosen another way of doing it. It would seem on balance that arriving at a reckonable rate is a more effective check on excessive claims than taking into account payments made. It is a substantial reduction in the rebate.
7.30 p.m.
Having listened to the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) I am minded to accept his Amendment if the House so approves. I think that it would improve the Bill. I will try to give an illustration about the joint occupiers, although I have not had very much time to work one out. On the whole, I prefer to have time with an academic exercise to put something on paper, or at least to consult the crib. Supposing there are reckonable rates of £20; the rebate for that for a couple living together would be £10 16s. 8d. If they were joint occupiers, each would be able to apply in respect of £10 reckonable rates and each would be able to obtain a rebate of £4 3s. 4d. The positon would be different with the apportionment of incomes, because, whereas the married couple would have £10 a week, the joint occupiers would have two of £8 a week. I hope that that explains the position.
I was asked why there was the provision that they must become entitled more than a month after the beginning of the rebate. I am advised that this difficulty would not arise in the other cases, but it arises where there is a change of abode later in the year.

Mrs. Thatcher: I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his explanation of this ragbag of Amendments and I am grateful to him for meeting a number of points which my hon. Friend raised in Committee. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) on his initiative in putting down the Amendment

to the Amendment and the Parliamentary Secretary's wisdom in accepting it. It meets an important consideration. Certain other points which should have been met are not met, but we must accept that three-quarters of our wishes are better than none at all.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 11, line 11, leave out "subsections (4) and (5)" and insert "the provisions".

In line 30, leave out "subsection (4)" and insert "the provisions".

In page 12, line 1, after "which", insert:
by virtue of the said paragraph (c)".

In line 8, after "applicant", insert:
then, subject to subsection (4B) of this section".—[Mr. MacColl.]

Amendment proposed: In page 12, line 13, leave out "being counted as half a person)" and insert:
who is not a child of the applicant or in the applicant's care being disregarded, and any child not falling to be disregarded being counted as half a person).
(4A) In the case of a rebate application by one of two or more joint occupiers or, as the case may be, joint tenants, subsection (4) of this section shall have effect as if for the words ' one other person who is either the spouse or a relative of the applicant' there were substituted the words ' the applicant's spouse, if any'.
(4B) If any of the additional persons referred to in subsection (4) of this section represents to the rating authority that he has no income and the authority are satisfied that the representation is true, the authority shall make no reduction under that subsection in respect of that person.
(4C) Where a rebate application in respect of, or of part of, a hereditament is made by a person who did not become entitled to make it until more than one month after the beginning of the rebate period to which it relates then—

(a) if the rating authority to whom the application is made are satisfied that, for that rebate period, the applicant has made or is liable to make (and neither is nor will be entitled to recover) a payment by way of rates or rent entitling him to apply for a rebate in respect of, or of part of, some other hereditament, the amount of the applicant's reckonable rates shall be increased by that sum or £3 15s., whichever is the less;
(b) in any other case, the amount of the applicant's reckonable rates shall be increased by an amount bearing the same proportion to £3 15s. as the part of the rebate period to which the application relates falling before the date when the applicant became entitled to make it bears to the whole of that period".—[Mr. MacColl.]

Question, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill, put and negatived.

Question proposed, That those words be there inserted in the Bill.

Amendment to the proposed words made: In subsection (4B), leave out "and" and insert:
or only such income as he receives from the applicant and if".—[Mr. Woodhouse.]

Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

Clause 5.—(RECKONABLE INCOME AND APPROPRIATE LIMITS THEREOF.)

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 31, in page 13, line 2, to leave out from "Act" to the end of line 6.
This matter arose in Committee, as the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) may remember, when I produced one of my very brilliant and lucid explanations of the Clause, so brilliant and lucid that I outstripped the Clause. The Clause did not say what I said that it said and the Amendment is to make it conform with what I said.
What is proposed is that payments for living accommodation are to be disregarded because people abate rates. If we take board and lodging payments into account as well, that will hit the applicant twice, but there was an exception to this where rent was paid by a sub-tenant, and this was a mistake. Under the Amendment, if a sub-letting of part of the premises is made, the sub-tenant and anyone living with him would be additional persons reducing the reckonable rate and therefore on the payments for disregard the two should be on an equal basis. The hon. Gentleman thought that that was sensible and I agree with it.

Mr. Allason: I am not sure that my recollection of what occurred is exactly the same as that of the Parliamentary Secretary. I distinctly recall pointing out the effect of these lines and saying that they appeared to me to be most unfair. The Parliamentary Secretary then said that he had noticed that they did not mean what they purported to mean, but then he had forgotten all about them and he was grateful to me for reminding him of them. He had not only forgotten them but forgotten to do anything about them, and it is only on Report that we find that they are being removed.
The curious thing is that they were included with a particular intention and that intention has now apparently been lifted. They were intended to apply to payments made by the sub-tenant to the tenant, and I pointed out that, as worded, the provision would apply to payments made by the sub-sub-tenant to the subtenant. I would have thought that it would have been perfectly possible to amend the Clause to do what the Parliamentary Secretary originally intended it to do, or rather what the Government intended it to do—I must not blame the Parliamentary Secretary too much for this. However, as I wish to see the entire subsection knocked out, I must be grateful to find that at least two-thirds of it are out.

Mr. MacColl: The hon. Gentleman is quite entitled to blame the Parliamentary Secretary. The Parliamentary Secretary is paid to be blamed. However, on this occasion I am fairly innocent. In Committee I said:
The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) and I are both right, I think, on the point which he raised. My explanation was admirably clear, logical and succinct. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was not accurate in terms of the Bill and the right hon. Gentleman is right. I am advised that what I said is what ought to be in the Bill and this is a matter which we shall consider before Report."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 8th February, 1966; c. 235–6.]
That is exactly what I have said and done.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Hall-Davis: I beg to move Amendment No. 32, in page 13, line 16, at the end to insert:
(4) In computing income for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of this section, the amount of interest received on deposits held in a building society shall be taken to be the net amount paid to the recipient.
This is a simple and straightforward Amendment and I will endeavour to explain it briefly. It is concerned with the grossing up of net receipts, such as dividend payments. I am not sure that it is generally appreciated that when the Bill becomes operative the position regarding tax deducted from small dividends may appear, to some people, to be contradictory and anomalous as between the treatment accorded for Income Tax purposes and rate relief. When


a married couple, of whom either the husband or wife is over 65, are in receipt of payments from which tax is deducted at source and their total income does not exceed £575, the limit for age exemption, their purpose in making a return of these net payments to the Revenue is in order to secure a repayment of tax. In other words, disclosure and grossing up operate in their favour and part of their income finds its way to them via the Inland Revenue.
Under this Bill, if their income exceeds £520 and is less than £575, the effect of grossing up before rate relief will be the exact opposite, because for each £ of tax involved it will reduce the relief by 5s., so that in one way they will be augmenting their income and in another they will be diminishing their relief. I can see this causing some bewilderment to many old people. It is important that they should have no fears that in the provisions of this Bill, so far as building society interest is concerned, no question of grossing up will arise.
I am sure that that is not the right hon. Gentleman's intention but the Bill is open to interpretation and it is just possible, in the light of one practice, that it might be so interpreted. In Circular No. 11/66 issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, paragraph 11 reads:
The Bill contains no definition of income'. The term is therefore to be interpreted in its fullest sense as ' that which comes in'.
In the context of this Amendment—relating to building society interest—my hon. Friends and I are a little apprehensive of the words
…interpreted in the fullest sense.
There is a precedent. It is only one, but there is a precedent where building society interest is concerned in which it is grossed up. This is for Surtax calculations and has the effect of reducing the pressure on the Revenue. In order to set at rest the minds of ratepayers and to establish beyond doubt that no similar demand on building society interest could arise under the provisions of this Bill, I would ask the Minister to accept this Amendment.

Mr. MacColl: There is no dispute about what we want to do here, but I cannot ask the House to accept the

Amendment, because I am advised that it is not necessary and might make things more confusing. The hon. Gentleman is more expert in this than I am, but special arrangements are made in the Income Tax Act with the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for building society interest. The building society is responsible for paying tax on interest payments.
7.45 p.m.
It is quite true that the amount paid is a composite rate, designed to balance the swings and roundabouts as between different individuals who receive interest payments. There is no question of the individuals being liable for the tax. It is the building society which is liable, and there is no question of grossing up these rates of interest. They are made free of tax.

Mr. Hall-Davis: In view of that explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 6.—(AFFORDING OF REBATES.)

Amendments made: In page 14, line 45, leave out "applicant" and insert "occupier".

In page 15, line 25, leave out "to the applicant".

In line 29, leave out "applicant's periodical payments" and insert:
periodical payments to the authority as owner".

In line 42, leave out from "that" to second "to" in line 43 and insert:
an amount equal to the relevant rates has not been paid".

In line 46, leave out from "that" to end of line 1 on page 16 and insert:
an amount equal to the applicant's reckonable rates has not been paid".

In page 16, line 7, leave out from first "the" to "as" in line 8 and insert:
appropriate amount has been paid".—[Mr. MacColl.]

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 39, in page 16, line 34, at the end to insert:
and for the purposes of subsection (6) of this section, as it applies to Scotland, the Scottish Special Housing Association shall, in relation to any rating area as to which the Association and rating authority so agree, be treated as if it were a local authority".


In our continuing discussions with the local authorities this has been suggested to us and we have asked the Scottish Special Housing Association how it responded to the suggestion. It agreed and, accordingly, the Amendment is designed to give the Scottish Special Housing Association a status equivalent to that of an owner authority for the purpose of affording rate rebate under subsection (6). The effect of the Amendment is that the S.S.H.A. and the particular rating authority may agree to a convenient method by which the rating authority can afford rebates to S.S.H.A. tenants, for example, by an adjustment of weekly payments made by the tenants to the S.S.H.A. to cover rates and rent. It is an Amendment peculiar to the Scottish situation, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. G. Campbell: Would it be correct to interpret this Amendment as meaning that if the S.S.H.A. did not wish, for some reason, to do this in a rating area, it would not have to? In other words, does this have to be the result of an agreement between the S.S.H.A. and the rating authority,

Dr. Mabon: Yes. We do not anticipate that this will be the case, because the S.S.H.A. as the hon. Gentleman knows, gets on very well with rating authorities, but the Amendment is dependent on agreement between both parties.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 8.—(TREATMENT OF, AND OF GRANTS TOWARDS, REBATES FOR OTHER PURPOSES.)

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 43, in page 17, line 18 to leave out from "rebate" to "under" in line 19 and to insert "under section 3 and any grant".
This is a drafting Amendment. Clause 8 begins at present:
Any rebate afforded by a rating authority under section 3 and any grant paid to such an authority…".
In other words, it implies cash accounting. The rate account regulations lay down income and expenditure rather than cash accounting. Therefore, in order to bring this Clause into line with those regulations the beginning will now read:
Any rebate under section 3 and any grant under section 7…

without making a distinction.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 17, line 23, at the end to insert:
or section 6 of the Local Government (Financial Provisions) Act 1963 (which relates to expenditure by a local authority in the interests of their area or its inhabitants but not otherwise authorised)".
This Amendment deals with the power of local authorities to spend up to a 1d. rate on local interests, and parish councils up to a fifth of a penny. The 1d. rate question is not likely to excite local authorities. The amount involved will not be great. But, in the case of parishes, which rightly are very jealous of their freedom, they have pointed out that the net cost of rebate would depress their rate product and so reduce their spending power under Clause 6. The Amendment meets that objection and does not interfere with their free fifth of a penny.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move Amendment No. 45, in page 17, line 25, to leave out from "rebates" to the end of line 31 and insert:
granted under the said section 3 in respect of any year shall be treated as loss on collection for that year;
(b) the amount of any grants payable under the said section 7 in respect of any year shall be included in the gross rate income for that year".
This Amendment does two things. First, it brings in line with the beginning of Clause 8 the removal of the words "afforded" and "paid" in order to meet the point which I have made about income and expenditure accounting. The second point concerns another parish rate product problem. By removing the reference to Section 100 of the Local Government Act, it ensures that the grant will be distributed. It will not be limited according to the formula in Section 100 and it will be open for Regulations to be made under the rate product Regulations to ensure that the parishes receive it in proportion to the rebates.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 9.—(INTERPRETATION.)

Mr. Hendry: I beg to move Amendment No. 46, in page 18, line 10, to leave out "heritages" and insert "heritage".
The purpose of this Amendment is to alter the interpretation Clause in such a way as to make it meaningful. The word "hereditament" is completely and utterly unknown to the law of Scotland. The Government have recognised that and have put an interpretation of that word in the Bill where it applies to Scotland. The wisdom of that is arguable. There is something to be said for importing this word into the law of Scotland. Also, there are arguments against it.
But what is inexcusable is to perpetrate in this or any other Bill what I can only describe as a grammatical monstrosity. The interpretation Clause interprets the singular word "hereditament" by "lands and heritages". It may be that a hereditament is a heritage, but one hereditament cannot be "heritages". That does not necessarily apply to "lands", because in Scotland that word is used in a singular sense. The purpose of the Amendment is to correct what I have called this grammatical monstrosity.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) and I entertained, I hope, the Committee in the debate on this matter, which is, nevertheless, quite serious. I agreed to look into it again and to take what legal advice was open to me to see whether I could meet some of the points which he raised. I wrote him a letter—I hope an acceptable letter—making a number of the points which I will have to repeat in support of my attitude on behalf of the Government in saying that the Amendment should be resisted.
The hon. Gentleman is very fair in making the point that the grammar is not right. That is absolutely true. If a Scottish term which is plural is substituted for an English term which is singular, there will clearly, on reading, be an error. The advice given to me is that the translation of "hereditament" as it has appeared in all the Scottish Valuation and Rating Acts, the Local Government Act, 1948, and the Rent Act, 1965, is consistently the same. To create a new term could be alleged to be a creation of a new legal concept.
The hon. Gentleman suggested to me that I might amend the Bill in certain respects. He wrote to me and said that he agreed that the iterated translation

throughout the Bill would be tedious. It would not be an iterated translation, but a reiterated translation 35 times. That would make a mess of the Bill.
I have consulted the draftsmen, and we cannot find a better way of dealing with the matter than is presently proposed in the Bill. I am strongly advised that it would be unwise—and I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees—to create a new phrase, "lands and heritage" which, if it appeared in the Bill as such, could be argued as being some form of entity or that it did not exist as such, not being "lands and heritages" in the common usage. I am simply retailing the very formidable legal advice which I have received from lawyers and draftsmen whose admiration for the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West has grown considerably. Nevertheless, they feel sure that he will see that it is too difficult to make the Amendment which he suggests, and I counsel the House not to accept it.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Under-Secretary of State said very fairly that he was retailing the advice given to him by the draftsmen. This is a matter on which the House is entitled to legal advice. We know that there is not a Scottish Law Officer, but by fortunate chance the Solicitor-General is present on the Government Front Bench. No doubt he would be prepared to advise us on what appears to be a serious and difficult point of law. We are very grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for being here. We appreciate that as there are no Scottish Law Officers we shall have to do with an English one. No doubt the Solicitor-General will be prepared to help us.

Dr. Mabon: Before the Solicitor-General compromises the position of the Lord Advocate, although we in Scotland would much admire an English opinion on a Scottish matter—I am sure that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West and I, although we may differ on many other points, agree about that—it is not just the opinion of the draftsmen I am retailing but that of the Lord Advocate. I saw him last night and we spoke about this matter. He has advised me to advise the House in the way that I have indicated. I am sure that it will not be very long before the Lord Advocate joins us in the House.

Mr. G. Campbell: I am sorry that the Government cannot accept this Amendment, because they have been able to accept such a lot of what my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) has put forward. I was glad to hear the tribute which the Under-Secretary of State paid to my hon. Friend's legal knowledge. I am sorry that this Amendment cannot be adopted, because the assiduity and knowledge of the law which has gone into helping the Scottish part of the Bill in this Report stage must, as the Under-Secretary of State would agree, have been very helpful to the Government.

Mr. Hendry: I could have expected many things from the Government, but I did not think that their ineptitude was such that they could not correct a grammatical mistake. Let this grammatical mistake be their monument.

Amendment negatived.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Before dealing with more general points, I should like to deal with a matter of interpretation which was raised by the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) and which it was not possible to deal with on Report. During the Committee proceedings, the hon. Member raised the question of a person who was widowed just before the start of the rebate period. The question was asked whether persons in that position would be handicapped by the income of their late husbands preventing them from obtaining a rebate.
The answer which is given at column 225 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, which was given off the cuff, was wrong. A widow would not be prejudiced by that tragic occurrence and would be able immediately to claim as a widow and to get full advantage as a widow. I am grateful to the hon. Member for drawing our attention to the point. I have written to him about it, but I am glad to get it on the record and make the position clear.

Mr. Woodhouse: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not being present when he began his speech, and I thank him for his explanation of the point which I raised in Committee.

Mr. MacColl: We come now to the final consideration of the Bill. It does a great deal to make rates a more tolerable tax than they have been in the past. It does this in two ways. One is by making it obligatory on local authorities to have an instalment scheme. As was explained at earlier stages, such an instalment scheme is not mandatory, in the sense that if an authority already operates a perfectly good scheme with which people are content, there is no need to alter it merely for the sake of alteration. When, however, ratepayers are not satisfied with an existing scheme, the Bill gives them power to demand a statutory scheme on the lines which it sets forth. In dealing with rebates, the Bill attempts again to deal with the problem, which has defied the efforts of previous Parliaments, of making adequate provision for people who cannot pay rates.
Going back long years into history, I remember very well when London had no method of giving any kind of rebate to people except after proceedings in court, because London had a different system of rating from the provinces. Later, London obtained a comparable scheme with the provinces and this difficulty was removed. The provisions for relief on grounds of poverty, however, have never really worked. As has been said during our discussions, very little use has been made of this power and it has been treated much too narrowly. The last attempt to deal with the problem was almost the last act of the last Government, who introduced a Measure which also failed to be effective. It was not used to any great extent. It was operated by only a few authorities.
The Bill, therefore, is another attempt, and a more sensible and practical one, to deal with the problem not only by establishing provisions for people of a fairly reasonable income to be able to get a rebate of, in the case of a married couple, up to £10 a week, and more in the case of a family with children, which will be helped to an even greater extent, but also by providing a scheme which does not suddenly stop and which has a tapering scale so that an income which is above the maximum does not fail completely to qualify for rebate.
What the Rent Act did for the Milner Holland Report in making its recommendations effective, this Bill does for


the Alen Report. The Bill is quick action on the Allen Report and has shown that the Government are anxious to do what they can to help. On what is, perhaps, the last occasion when it will be relevant to say so, I should like to express my appreciation to Professor Allen and his colleagues for the work of their Report. It was a fact-finding Report. It was not a policy Report but was one of the most valuable statistical mines of information that one could have.
To reminisce once again, I well remember that in the days when I was paid to write things about local government there was no statistical evidence about the incidence of rates later than the late 1930s. Mr. and Mrs. Hicks completed a study which was based upon pre-war figures. Until the publication of the Allen Report, no up-to-date information was available.
We on this side do not, of course, take credit for setting up the Allen Committee—I readily acknowledge that that was done by the previous Government—but if the Allen Report had been published even earlier, we might have been able to act more quickly. When the Report eventually came, we acted quickly to put its recommendations into effect.
The Bill has been very much helped in Committee. My right hon. Friend the Minister, who is an old-fashioned democrat, has the idea that it is a good thing that where there is general agreement about a Bill, attention should be paid to the proceedings in Committee and that it is foolish for a Government not to want to improve a Bill when improvements can be effected. We have approached this matter, as we approached the Rent Bill, very much in that spirit.
We have had some helpful interventions and Amendments, and some which were not so helpful. A Government can classify the Amendments to a Bill in three categories. There are those which are good and improve the Bill and which should be adopted. There are those which are negative in the sense that they make the Bill no worse; they are probably not necessary but for the sake of harmony the Government, if they are wise, endeavour to meet the points that are made. Finally, there are the Amendments which are extremely bad, either

because of drafting or because the principle behind them is bad, and which should not be accepted. We have had some of those, but, as the Report stage showed, we have gone a long way to make the Bill better and to make the Committee proceedings worthwhile, because we had a very useful and constructive Committee stage.
Finally, I want to thank the members of the Committee who worked so hard on the Bill. They did a helpful job. As always, those very patient people who prepare the briefs which the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) so envies, have been of invaluable help in the kindness with which they have dealt with points that have arisen. Then, I know that my right hon. Friend would want me to say how much we owe to the draftsmen and officials of the Department who have done so much to make the Bill a valuable contribution to the history of rating reform.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Bill is certainly benevolent in intention and, to some extent, in effect. As the Parliamentary Secretary has generously admitted—

Mr. Crossman: He said it.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Very well, if he prefers it. As the hon. Gentleman has said, the discussions at the earlier stages have been with a genuine desire to improve it, and even the most impatient Minister could not suggest that it had been unduly delayed or prolonged. The proceedings earlier today, in which, as it seemed, Mr. Speaker was the hardest worked member present, have shown the results and fruits of the discussions during the seven sittings of the Standing Committee.
I must congratulate particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) on the improvements which, according to the Parliamentary Secretary, they have made in the Bill. There were moments when it seemed that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West was acting as the missing Scottish Law Officer, and I am sure that any Administration that had his services as such would be singularly well served.
It is therefore the fact that we have done our best to improve the Bill, and there have been a great many Amendments made to it. But I am afraid that it still remains a great deal less good than it could and should have been. As the Parliamentary Secretary says, it follows on the Report of the Allen Committee, and I join with the hon. Gentleman in his tribute to Professor Allen and his colleagues, whom my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) appointed and who reported to the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister. The Report gave to the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity to come forward with broader and perhaps more long lasting proposals than would have been possible before its receipt.
The Parliamentary Secretary skated with great skill round the outer perimeter of the rules of order on Third Reading when he referred to the earlier Measure of 1964. Lacking his skill, I shall not proceed far on that, save to comment that it was produced as a holding Measure in advance of the Allen Report to deal with the immediate short-term problems arising from revaluation.
Now I come to the Bill, the last stages of which we are discussing. As I said to the House, it seems to me and my hon. Friends that it could have been a great deal better and a great deal more helpful. Two defects remain. First of all, it is far too blunt an instrument for the purpose. It will give some help in directions where help is not particularly needed, and I am thinking, for example, of households with a number of earning members. It will give far too little help or none at all in directions in which help is really needed, in the direction particularly of single people living to a large extent on the various social and benevolent payments which we discussed during the Report stage debates on new Clauses 3 to 6.
It could have been a less blunt and more discriminating instrument, and a much more effective application of the substantial sums of public money involved. Therefore, while it is not my intention, nor would it be sensible, to dispute that it would bring some measure of help in many directions in which it is needed, the money could have been applied better, the instrument could have

been less blunt, and the disposition of help could have been more discriminating and, therefore, more effective. We regret that.
Its other great defect is its financial basis. The local authority associations and outside opinion have been as near as may be unanimous that when national standards of relief of this kind were being enacted by Parliament, they feel that the full cost should have been shouldered by the national Exchequer. As it is, even at this stage, we must not overlook the fact that under the provisions of the Bill, according to the right hon. Gentleman's estimate, some £7 million a year will be added to the burdens carried by other ratepayers by way of provision of rebate, and probably some £3 million more will be added to those burdens by way of the extra administrative costs.
Those figures may not loom very large against the general background of rates, but it must be remembered that they will be additional burdens imposed at a time and in a year when, in any event, the rate level will rise sharply. They will be additions to a rising burden, and no opportunity has been taken in the enactment of this Measure to discharge the pledge of right hon. Gentlemen opposite to give early relief to ratepayers in general.
It was the right hon. Gentleman's estimate that it will give relief to one ratepayer in ten. Not only will it give no relief to the other nine. It will add positively to their burdens at a time when, in any event, despite the expectations aroused by the right hon. Gentleman's promises, we know that within a few weeks most of the citizens of this country will receive disagreeable surprises on learning how much their rates have been increased.
In a considerable measure, the Bill is a lost opportunity both to redeem pledges and to give help much more widely and, as I have said in my earlier observations, to give it much more efficiently and effectively.
Being conscious of the importance of the problem and the seriousness of the burden of rates upon our fellow citizens, we on this side will do nothing and have done nothing to obstruct the Bill. But we wish to make clear how limited is the good that it will do and how limited that good is in contrast with what it might have been.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Woodhouse: The Bill has had a qualified welcome in the House at every stage, and it would be churlish to say anything too disparaging of it now. Nevertheless, there are two qualifications which still need to be emphasised at this final stage. The first is the qualification already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) in the debate on the Report stage, that it is a Bill which will need amending in the next Parliament. She was even prepared to wager £20 on it, and I hope that the Minister will be so unwise as to take her bet.
The second qualification which must be in the minds of us all, at any rate on this side of the House, is that, as my right hon. Friend said, although the Bill will give much-needed relief to some ratepayers, it will do so in the main at the expense of all the other ratepayers. My right hon. Friend, quoting from the Financial Memorandum to the Bill, suggested the kind of figures which indicate the scale of the burden likely to fall on the other ratepayers. He referred to a figure of £7 million, which is deduced by deducting £22 million Exchequer grant from the £29 million estimate made by the Minister himself of the total burden.
My right hon. Friend added to that a figure of £3 million for administrative costs, but I think it is right also to admit to ourselves that there is bound to be another figure to add, which it is impossible to assess at this stage, a figure to take account of the fact that an unknown and incalculable number of people who at present are on National Assistance may prefer to take advantage of the provisions of the Bill to receive rate rebates instead. It is impossible to calculate how many may do so, and, therefore, how much additional burden there will be on the other ratepayers, but there will certainly be some.
At an earlier stage of the Bill I referred to the fact that although the National Assistance Board is mentioned in the Financial Memorandum there is no mention of it in the body of the Bill. It seems to me likely that this will lead to requests for information from the local authorities, which will again be a tiresome additional burden on officials who are bound to be overworked as a result of the Bill.
For those reasons, although none of us on this side of the House is minded to oppose a Measure which will give relief to some of our constituents, even though it be at the expense of the rest of them, we give the Bill no more than a qualified welcome, with the thought certainly not far from the back of our minds that more work will have to be done on it in a subsequent Parliament.

8.23 p.m.

Mr. Hall-Davis: In opening the Third Reading debate the Joint Parliamentary Secretary made some complimentary remarks about the efforts of hon. Members on these benches and in Committee, and some not so complimentary remarks. I hope he will appreciate that if I do not spend time this evening making complimentary comments about the Bill it is because I want to concentrate on making constructive criticisms. I do so because, like my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse), my response to the Bill is one of qualified approval, and I am certain that its provisions will not be in their present form in two year's time.
The Bill will bring welcome relief to many, but in its principal provisions it shows some marked signs of hasty preparation, and this is surprising in view of the length of time which the right hon. Gentleman took to produce it. Its provisions also show signs that it has become artificially detached from a wider and more comprehensive Measure, and I suspect that it was artificially detached in some haste by the right hon. Gentleman because the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not prepared at this juncture to raise through the Exchequer additional taxation necessary to support more comprehensive rate reforms. I believe that this fact of isolation and this lack of relation to other taxation provisions which affect the same type of person, and persons in the same ranges of income, are definite weaknesses of the Bill.
In the Ministry's Press hand-out of 26th November it was said of the Bill:
This is a tax reform, and it is not aimed at the relief of hardship as such.
As we consider the Bill Clause by Clause as it is now before the House, it seems to me obvious that the very reverse is the case, and I put this forward as a serious comment and criticism of the Bill.


for while it will bring relief from hardship to a greater or lesser degree for many people, it cannot in any way be claimed to be a Measure of tax reform, certainly not tax reform related to the general taxation system. This was the claim which was made for it when it was first published.
As the Bill stands, there is no phasing in of its income limits for relief with personal allowances and the bands of income charged at the lower tax rates for Income Tax of 4s. and 6s., and it is significant that no statistical tables have been made available to show how the Bill will work in conjunction with the Income Tax provisions. I think that one would find these extremely illuminating.
As a result of this failure of co-ordination with the Income Tax provisions, if we consider the effect of the Bill as it stands, we see that once a ratepayer's income starts to rise above £520 for a married couple, and £416 for a single person, the effect on earnings of the provisions of the Bill, combined with the operation of Income Tax and P.A.Y.E., will in certain cases be fiercely regressive—and I stress that I mean fiercely regressive—in a way which applies in no other bracket of our taxation of income.
That is ironical when one remembers that it was the regressive nature of rates which was one of the strongest reasons for making them one of the most disliked—I was going to say most detested—sectors of our taxation, and yet in our attempts to improve the position we have in some way created new "lows" in regressive taxation.
I want to give two examples to illustrate my argument, drawn from the operation of the provisions of the Bill. Let us first consider the case of the widow with one child below the age of 11. I had better qualify my comments by saying that anyone who rushes into a detailed discussion of taxation does so subject to the letters which are printed at the bottom of Private Bills—E. & O. E. As I calculate the position, however, the widow's allowances will be, for Income Tax, £375—a personal allowance of £220 and a child's allowance of £115, and I believe that she is entitled to the special type of housekeeper's allowance of £40. She will be drawing £312 per annum in National Insurance benefits. If she is

working, going out to maintain her independence to supplement her National Insurance benefits, when her income rises to £494, the rating relief basic figure—that is, £416 and the £78 in child allowances—she will be paying tax at the 4s. rate, and she will have paid it on £79 of that £100 in the 4s. bracket, and on the next £28 of her earnings her Income Tax and the loss of rate relief that will come from her going to work and increasing her earnings will be 8s. in the £ of those earnings, net.
If her earnings are more than £210 per annum she takes herself into the 6s. in the £ Income Tax bracket, and if her rates are £40 she will pay a tax of 9s. 8d. in the £ on her next £59 of earnings until her entitlement to rate relief is exhausted at the comparatively low income figure of £581. This would be equivalent to a standard rate of tax, on that last £59 of earnings, of 12s. 5d. if it were dealt with subject to earned income relief, in the way that the standard rate of Income Tax is dealt with.
She is getting rate relief, but she will soon start not to look at the rate relief but at the disincentive effect of the operation of that rate relief in combination with Income Tax. In case the Parliamentary Secretary finds this example somewhat involved, and in case I have done my sums wrongly, I will give him a briefer example which he can check from the Budget Financial Statement. This is the example of a single woman with her income all earned. When her income rises to the £416 basic figure she is paying £21 Income Tax on it. She has just exhausted the 4s. bracket for Income Tax. Therefore, for the next £66 of her earnings, if she is a ratepayer at the rate of £30 a year, up to the modest figure of earnings of £482 she will pay at the rate of 9s. 8d. I am quoting these figures because they are appropriate to this type of person. It is by no means unlikely that cases of this sort will exist.
She pays local tax and national tax at 9s. 8d. in the £. If we consider her loss of rate relief in the form of deductions from her earnings—and that is how people will regard it—it is equivalent to her paying at the standard rate of 12s. 5d. before earned income relief. These examples illustrate some of the serious defects in the Bill.
Where is the Bill wrong? As we have considered the Bill during its various


stages, I have felt that there must be a flaw or a weakness somewhere which has accentuated the regressive effect to which I have just referred. I believe it is to be found in Clause 5(6), under which the Minister has taken insufficiently wide powers to make variations. In that subsection the Minister has power, with the approval of the Treasury, to vary either the limit of income specified in subsection (4)—that is, the £260 for six months or £520 for a year for a married person, or £208 for six months or £416 for a year for a single person—and also to vary the £78 in respect of each child. But this power to vary does not relate to Clause 3(1, b) which contains another significant figure in the operation of the Bill. This is the reduction of 5s. in the rate relief for each additional £ of earnings over the basic figure for qualification for relief. The Parliamentary Secretary drew attention to the fact that this is a tapering scheme. One of the basic weaknesses of the Bill is that the tapering takes place too quickly. If the Minister had the power under the Bill to vary the 5s. figure as well as the other limits for which he has taken powers, experience would show that this was a much more valuable provision.
He would then be able, for instance by reducing the figure to 2s. 6d. in the £ instead of 5s., to do what many of us would like—assist those in the income bands above those which the Bill covers. He could also mitigate the regressive effect of the Bill very substantially on earnings in the type of cases to which I have referred.

8.35 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Rhodes: Having attended many long sittings of Committees and maintained a dutiful silence for that period, I am provoked this evening to speak for perhaps five minutes in view of one or two remarks made during the debate. I should like immediately to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) and, as an old friend of his, I think that he will take my remarks as being in the best of taste.
He was a little unfair to say that a more comprehensive rate reform Measure was needed, which would necessarily involve considerably more Exchequer help. If we are to try to make this kind of point, which has been made considerably

during the afternoon and evening, we must look at the matter in perspective. This Measure will cost the nation, as ratepayers or taxpayers, a total of about £29 million a year, £22 million of which will come from the Exchequer. There will be 2 million beneficiaries.
When we compare this reform with the parsimonious and cheese-paring legislation passed by the previous Government, which cost the Exchequer £50,000 a year and not £22 million—in addition, of course, to the £5 million which was admittedly paid as a once and for all measure for local authorities for a large number of elderly people—we see that this Bill is a Measure of considerable generosity.
The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) made the maximum possible political advantage out of the minimum possible point when he talked about the Bill resulting in an expenditure which will be a burden on other ratepayers. Of course, although it is true that the Bill will result in a burden on the non-beneficiary ratepayers of approximately a penny rate—this is the 25 per cent. contribution from the local authorities—I should be much more impressed by that point if not for the fact that the Measure passed by the previous Government resulted in a 33⅓ per cent. contribution from the local ratepayers, which was much more parsimonious.
The fact that the Bill lays down a national standard is not an impressive point to counteract this argument. It is true that there are weaknesses in the Bill: this was admitted when the Bill was presented to the House. It is precisely because of its simplicity and the desire not to complicate the Bill—it was described by the Minister as a "rough and ready" Measure—that there have inevitably been references in the debate to anomalies under the Bill.
The alternative, however, would have been to create a Bill which was so complicated and which placed such an enormous burden on the shoulders of municipal treasurers throughout the country that it would have resulted in bitterness, hostility and difficulty of implementation and would still not have seen the light of day and Third Reading in this House. This, of course, is why the Minister and the Government have opposed this wide-ranging conception of disregards.
The hon. Lady the Member for Tyne-mouth (Dame Irene Ward), with her customary courtesy, insulted all before her and marched out without waiting to listen to the reply. Since she has returned to the Chamber I will remind her that in her constituency and mine there is a considerable number of elderly people who will benefit enormously from the £29 million a year of the rest of the public's money which is being given to them to relieve them of their rate burden.
The hon. Lady will know that in the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne there has been a steadily rising rate burden during the last ten years. This has fallen particularly heavily on domestic ratepayers, particularly the elderly, and what is not fully known is the extent to which this Bill will help them. As I go round my constituency—and I am sure that this applies to the hon. Lady—I realise that it is not sufficiently widely known how much per week in reduced council house rents to those who qualify and reduced rate contributions for those who are owner-occupiers this Measure will mean to the elderly.
When it comes to arguing the purely party point—and I do not believe that any Government spokesman on this matter has dwelt on that aspect; I do so because I consider it necessary at this point—one need only compare the parsimonious contribution of £50,000 a year to individual ratepayers in need by the previous Government with the £29 million a year being paid to ratepayers in need by this Government.
It is not widely enough appreciated in the country—and I hope that it will become so appreciated quickly—that the Bill applies to a very wide range of people. It is not even sufficiently realised that it applies to tenants equally as to owner-occupiers, and the sooner the public knows what a wide-ranging Measure this is and what it really means to the ordinary people in terms of £ s.d. the sooner it will become widely welcomed indeed.
The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, in stressing the fact that other ratepayers will foot part of the bill is trying to get away with the kind of political argument that the real reason for rate increases this year is because of this Bill. A number of Conservative

propagandists, particularly on Tyneside, are saying that it is the Government's Rating Bill that is placing an extra burden on the shoulders of ratepayers. This is not true. If local authorities were compelled to raise rates by 1s. or 1s. 6d. in the £ in the current year, 1d. or perhaps 1½ d. might be due to this Measure. It is well known to those who are honest and sincere about this that the major reason for the increasing cost of local government services in the current year is the substantial salary awards given to members of the teaching profession—and as a former teacher I do not object to that—and other employees of local authorities.
Those who argue, "Although the Bill will help some, it does not go very far towards helping other categories of people who do not qualify under the Bill and, therefore, for them the Labour Party has not yet fulfilled its promise to give early relief to ratepayers" should not be impatient. They must await further announcements and I am sure that they will be made before long.
As a member of the Labour Party, I regard it as a great compliment to my party that we are being attacked in the country by Conservatives for not having achieved in 13 months what they failed to achieve in 13 years. This Measure will go a very long way towards solving the problems of particularly the elderly ratepayers, as well as those who are living on low incomes. The further measures which will come along will go towards helping those towns and cities which have very heavy rate burdens and costly redevelopment schemes, such as Newcastle.
The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) said that Conservative revaluation legislation had been of some help to domestic ratepayers because during that period there was a redistribution of the rate burden as between different categories of people. That may have been true on average—I would not know—but, from the point of view of Newcastle, as a result of those Conservative Measures the proportion of the total rateable value of that city borne by domestic ratepayers rose by 10 per cent., and it was precisely because of that that this Bill was so necessary.

Mr. Allason: I was referring to the 1956 revaluation and the fact that, as a


result of that, average rates in England and Wales came down from about 26s. to about 17s. If that did not occur in Newcastle, something peculiar must have happened.

Mr. Rhodes: I am referring to the revaluation carried out in the city of Newcastle as a result of legislation passed by the hon. Gentleman's own Government. If he wishes, he can check the facts, but I can tell him that the result of that revaluation of property and of other measures taken by his Government during that period, was that the proportion of rateable value there which fell on the domestic ratepayers increased by 10 per cent.
I merely make the point that it was precisely because of that, and because of the number of heavily-rated properties occupied largely by elderly people, that I welcome this Measure—

Mr. Allason: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether he is referring to the 1963 or the 1956 valuation? I was referring to the 1956 revaluation, but it is fairly obvious from the hon. Gentleman's later remarks that he is referring to the 1963 revaluation, which is quite different.

Mr. Rhodes: I was referring to the total effect of the revaluation of property in the city of Newcastle between 1956 and 1963. I was not referring to any particular time, but saying that the overall—the hon. Gentleman may shake his head, but he can check the fact if he wishes—the overall effect of Conservative rating legislation in the city of Newcastle was to increase the proportion of total rateable value falling on the domestic ratepayers by 10 per cent.—

Mr. Allason: Between 1955 and 1964?

Mr. Rhodes: There is really no need for me to repeat the point, but as a result of the previous Government's revaluation legislation, along with other measures affecting the valuation of industrial and commercial properties—and this is the third time I have said it—the proportion of the rate burden in the city of Newcastle which fell on the domestic ratepayers increased. I do not say that it is true of the whole country; I refer to a particular city. It was the anomalous effect of that legislation on different classes of rate-payers

that made further legislation necessary.
I have taken longer than the five minutes I mentioned, but in view of the long period of waiting it seemed to me that, particularly after the speech of the hon. Member for Tynemouth, someone else from the Tyneside who is very much concerned with this problem should put a fair and accurate picture.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Norman Cole: I am glad that we have the provisions contained in this Bill, which we hope will soon become an Act. Let us pay tribute to what is in it, even though we may think that it should contain more. I say that in courtesy and respect to the Government for what they have done.
When a Bill marks a new departure or sets a new pattern there are two reasons why amending legislation may be necessary in the following three, four or five years. We believe that there will be an amending Measure in this case—we trust by a Conservative Government—in the course of the next three or four years, or perhaps earlier, because the more we amend it the more we hope to make it less rough justice and more impacting on those on whom it is intended to impact as a rating relief Bill.
The first reason why amending legislation becomes necessary is the light that experience throws on the working of the initial Measure. The other reason is that certain things did not find their place in the first Measure, however much we pressed for them during the proceedings. On the first count about experience I acquit the present Government or my own Government, or any other Government, because we cannot always see through the crystal ball to the next four or five years or perhaps even to the next 12 months.
I cannot acquit any Government, my own or in this case the present Government, in refusing to put in some measures—I shall not specify them or you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule me out of order—which by general consent of hon. Members on both sides of the House we ought to see in a Bill of this kind. That second criticism has nothing to do with experience, but with judgment at the time such a Bill is passed into law.
I endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said. Since this Bill is in many ways for the relief of poverty of the people at large which—I take the expression used by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East, is a national standard—I still fail to see why any part of the cost of the Bill, whether one-fifth or so much more allowing for administration costs, should fall on the funds of local authorities. This should be an assisting Bill passed by the Government giving authority to local authorities to make rate rebates. There are precedents in other walks of life for the bill to be sent to the Government and to be paid by the taxpayers as a whole.
To put one fifth, or more because of the administration costs, of the cost on to local authorities is cheeseparing and dodging the issue by the Government. We do not put the cost of National Assistance and other benefits which come from the State on to local authorities. Why should we do so for rate rebates? In Committee and on Report time and again the words "local taxes" have been used. If that is the present definition of the impost made through local authorities, why should the relief not be treated as a national tax and paid by the general body of taxpayers who are in a much better position to bear it than the average ratepayer?
Why have we got this Bill which, so far as it goes, we all welcome and will be pleased to give a Third Reading?

Mr. Crossman: Because we have a good Government.

Mr. Cole: Despite what the right hon. Gentleman said, we must look at the causation of the Bill for two reasons. First it is necessary because still, in the latter part of the 20th century, we have a high degree of poverty among a number of the people. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] I do not need endorsement for I am repeating what we all know. We have been told that about 2 million people will be affected by the Bill. Presumably they are adults. The adult population of the country is 35 million approximately, so this refers to 7 per cent. of the adult population. It is a national problem, not a local problem

Nevertheless, it is to be dealt with through local authorities.
Another reason for the Bill is the general impost, the size and impact of rates. For these two reasons, which have appeared so intractable that they have not been cured by any Government and we look forward to the day when they will be cured, we have this Bill. We have to do something much more than this Bill if we are to clear this kind of poverty and other kinds of poverty in the country. We have to do much more than the palliative of this Bill to solve the rate problem, and much more than the right hon. Gentleman the Minister has recently proposed regarding rates. If we are not to have a Bill of this kind every year or so for the next 25 or 30 years to deal with the question of poverty, which we hope will be solved in the next few years by various suggestions made from both sides of the House, we shall have to take action on this great problem of rates.
Unless we are to have this kind of Bill regularly for the next 25 or 30 years, eroding but not solving the rates problem, someone—perhaps this Government, but I doubt it very much—must evolve a new rate pattern so that the ratepayers shall be relieved of the actual burden of rates which grows increasingly each year.
It is not only because of the financial burden, but because of what my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) called dislike of rate impost. I have no hesitation in saying, that even though there has been a rate system of one kind or another in this country for the last three centuries, and in its present form for the last 70 or 80 years, there has never been a time, not only because of the amount of money but because of the very fact of rates and all that goes with it, when the rates have been an object of such great detestation by the average ratepayer as is the case today. Some Government must solve this problem, not by palliatives or reliefs, but by taking the whole problem in one and finding a solution that will make this necessary local tax more amenable to ratepayers' pockets and to their viewpoints.

8.57 p.m.

Mr. Eric Ogden: We have just been told that the reason for the Bill is that there is a high


degree of poverty amongst a high proportion of our people. But this was not said yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition. He spoke of an affluent society with small islands of poverty. The Opposition should reconcile the two points of view put forward. The reason why we have this Bill is that we have a Labour Government who recognised the need and brought in a Measure to meet that need. Certainly no one on the Opposition side would deny there is a need and this Bill will go some way towards meeting it
I do not share the optimism of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) that the next Government will be a Conservative Government. I have my own version of that. I only hope that the decision comes very soon. I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Rhodes) "broke his fast" and joined in this debate. I do not know how my hon. Friend, who is P.P.S. to a Minister for whom he has such high regard, was able to keep silent for so long on a subject in which he is so deeply involved. It is not without significance that parts of Newcastle-on-Tyne are now called "Rhodesia".
The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) said there was a serious defect in the Bill. In fact, he admitted quite freely that he deliberately set out to look for a flaw and he found it. All 630 Members of this House could find defects in any Bill that came before us.

Mr. Cole: My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis), whom I cannot see here at the moment, did not say that. I listened very carefully to what my hon. Friend said. My hon. Friend said that he had tried to find a reason why certain items of people's finances were to be treated in a particular way. He said that he had found the answer in Clause 5.

Mr. Ogden: I will accept what the hon. Gentleman said, but the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale said that he had looked for flaws and had found one. We can all criticise any Bill, and if a time comes when there is no criticism of a Bill from the Floor of the House we can all go home. The millenium

will have arrived and we shall not need Governments, Parliaments or anybody else.
This is an extremely good Bill, but there are people outside who do not yet know the benefits which will be derived from it. It is assumed that it is primarily for owner-occupiers and, secondly, for the tenants of private houses. But it is not sufficiently widely known that it applies also to the tenants of corporation houses. I know that in my constituency this point is not well enough known, and it must be hammered home. I do not yet know how it will affect differential rent schemes or rent rebate schemes, but I understand that, under the terms of the Bill as amended and now before us, there is no reason why corporation tenants should not apply for these benefits as for anything else which is open to them. When the Bill finally receives the Royal Assent, there will have to be explanatory leaflets or booklets of information to bring these matters to the notice of everyone.
It is a good Bill. We should congratulate the Government on bringing it in at this time, and a share of congratulation should go to right hon. and hon. Members opposite for having given it a reasonably speedy passage. They welcome it now, and their conversion is welcomed. Let us get the Bill through and let the benefits come along as soon as they possibly can.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Terence L. Higgins: On Second Reading both sides of the House welcomed the Bill as giving relief to ratepayers with low incomes, but it was pointed out then that, from the point of view of hon. Members on this side, it had a fundamental flaw in the method whereby relief was to be given. A considerable part of the cost of giving relief was to fall upon other ratepayers. When the Money Resolution came before the House, I pointed out that its terms were likely to prevent any suitable Amendment being made to improve the form of the Bill in this respect, and I regret to say that that prophecy has come true. The form of the Bill is still such that the cost of providing relief will fall very considerably on ratepayers with incomes above the limits set in it, quite apart from the cost of financing the administration of the


Bill which itself may be not inconsiderable.
The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Rhodes) tended to talk in terms of the overall picture for the country as a whole, but it should be made clear once again that the flaw to which I have just referred means that in areas which are very hard hit by rising rates, as my constituency is, although relief will be given to a good number of people, there will be a considerably increased burden falling on the remainder of ratepayers. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman when he says that the earlier Measure introduced by the Conservatives was parsimonious. In fact, my constituency received about £82,000 under Part I of that Act in the first year and considerable further relief as well. For my constituency, therefore, which is one of the worst hit, this Bill is not a satisfactory Measure from that point of view.
The Bill, it is true, gives relief to ratepayers with low incomes, but this covers two groups: on the one hand, those who are low income wage earners and, on the other hand, those who are living on low fixed incomes. But these two groups are, in fact, separate and, as inflation takes place, the low wage earners will be likely to have some increase in their wages, although those wages are low, while those on fixed incomes will be unlikely to have any increase. For this reason, I was very sorry that we were unable to defeat the Government on the new Clauses debated earlier today.
As I have said, the consequence of the Bill will be that quite a large percentage of the cost is borne by ratepayers, even though it was suggested in the present Government's election manifesto that they would transfer the burden of public local expenditure from the ratepayers to the Exchequer. Clearly, in preparing the Bill, the Minister was not prepared to put the whole burden on the Exchequer. In an earlier debate, to which I referred in a supplementary question to the Prime Minister last week, I pointed out that the Minister had told the House that he was unable to transfer more of the cost of public expenditure from the rates to the Exchequer because of the economic situation. I would be most interested to hear, because that point recurs in the principle underlying the Bill

and in the form that it takes, how it is that the right hon. Gentleman believes that such a transfer from the ratepayer to the taxpayer is impossible because of the economic situation.
This is more than a matter of passing interest because it seems possible that, owing to the pressure that we on this side have been bringing to bear, such a transfer may eventually take place, even though the economic situation has not significantly improved. If that is so, we need an explanation of the statement by the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
While one welcomes the relief to be given to ratepayers with small incomes, it seems to me that the Bill was originally misconceived. But because of the Money Resolution it has been impossible to amend it satisfactorily. The Bill's objective is to be applauded, but the principle on which it is to be financed is to be deplored.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Hendry: The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) described this as a very good Bill. I hope that the Minister heard him and has chalked up a good mark to him. If the hon. Member thinks that this is a very good Bill then his standard must be pretty low. I would rather describe it as a mixed Bill, rather like the curate's egg—good in parts and very bad in other parts. It is like an egg that cracks in hot water so that all the goodness goes into the water.

Mr. Ogden: Having witnessed quite a number of Bills presented by the Opposition, I find the taste of this Bill very good indeed.

Mr. Hendry: That is a matter of taste.
One part of the Bill provides for the payment of rates by instalments and the other gives certain rebates for persons in need. Particularly in the first part, the Bill, as has been said, is a lost opportunity.
The Bill is very imperfect as far as Scotland is concerned and it could have been very much better with a little thought. For Scotland, the Bill produces a hotch-potch, based on the English model, providing for the first half of the rates to be paid in instalments—which bears some relation to reality—but, in relation to the second half of the year.


bearing no relation to reality at all because of an Amendment providing for review. It is an extremely unsatisfactory Bill in that respect and I hope sincerely that this Government or the next will amend the Bill for Scotland and bring in something really sensible.
I am glad to say that, in our consideration of the Bill, it has been greatly improved even for Scotland, and I am grateful to the Government for small mercies in accepting Amendments from this side which have done a great deal to improve what, for Scotland, is a very mediocre Bill.
Part II, dealing with rebates, is desirable and I am glad of it, but it could have been a great deal better. However, we have discussed that and it would be improper for me to go into detail. My hopes for the Bill have been, to a large extent, dashed.
What has the Bill done? This is not a matter of the Government in their magnanimity undertaking some of the rate burden now resting on the poor. They have put a large part of that burden on other ratepayers. In other words, those ratepayers who are not being relieved, many people who are owner-occupiers and who have saved up and bought properties with high rateable values, will have to bear a burden which should have been borne by national funds. The relief of poverty should not be the concern of local authorities and ratepayers. That is fairly and squarely the Government's responsibility. It is a national problem which the Government have failed to shoulder, and which they have foisted on local authorities which are finding that the rate burden has not been relieved so much as simply transferred from one set of ratepayers to another. In that respect the Bill is very disappointing. I hope that the Government will overcome their ineptitude and produce a better Bill, or, better still, that the Government are cast out and that we get a Government who will deal with this problem in a proper and sensible manner.

9.12 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I am sorry to intervene again and I apologise to the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Rhodes) for not being able to come into the Chamber until the middle of his speech. I do not think that he was here

when I explained that I should be unable to remain to hear the answer of the right hon. Gentleman. I apologised about that, although I did not feel that I wanted to hear much from the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends.
I say at once that whatever my faults may be and however much newcomers may battle with problems—and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East has been here only a very short time and has not battled with this problem for the long number of years that I have fought for those on small fixed incomes—and whether people like my methods and what I have to say or not, I have always assumed that even the Labour Party would appreciate my welcome for any step to relieve those on small fixed incomes of some of their rate burdens. I have tried to be honourable, sincere and genuine, and I have never had those aspects of my character questioned.
I made my position very plain at the last General Election when I said that a reasonable proportion of the education costs should be borne by the Exchequer and not by the ratepayers. I did not know whether my party agreed with me, but that did not worry me, because I knew that I agreed. Needless to say, I was severely criticised by my political opponent, who did not seem to be interested in the problems of the rate burdens of those living on small fixed incomes. I am always delighted at any stage when the Government or my own party come to the rescue of those living on small fixed incomes.
The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East, who is very much a newcomer to the House, is a very good debater. He makes a lot of speeches and he gets a lot of headlines. He does a good deal of stirring the pot.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): Order. The hon. Gentleman is not mentioned in the Bill which is now having its Third Reading.

Dame Irene Ward: The pot gets stirred whether we are having a Third Reading or not. However, I leave it there having got my reference to his stirring the pot on the record.
One of the problems of this Bill is that although relief is given to the small fixed income group and the lower income


group, there is no provision for what I would call the marginal people. This is a real problem as I tried to explain in Committee. In part of my constituency there is an above-average number of retired people. Last Saturady I had a long conversation about how this Bill would affect Whitley Bay. The problem is that the marginal people, who are just not in the income group for relief, will at the same time have to pay the increased burden. I do not think that from a humane point of view the Government have really seen the whole picture.
The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East talked most eloquently about Newcastle. I know that the Minister and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East are busy trying to put the enormous rate burden that has been accumulating in Newcastle on to the rest of Tyneside, but we are not having it. It is not surprising that the hon. Gentleman should talk so eloquently about Newcastle's problems. The whole of Tyneside is well aware of what is going to happen to the rates. It may be that even those who have relief are going to find themselves overburdened unless we win our battle. I think that we are going to do this. We are going to squash the right hon. Gentleman and his plans.
The hon. Gentleman has made a case over the problems of Newcastle. We know about these and we are getting ready to build an entrenchment against Newcastle. The other parts of Tyneside, the North and the South Bank—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I always listen to the hon. Lady with interest but she must come to the Bill.

Dame Irene Ward: I really have very little to say about the Bill [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I hope Mr. Speaker that you will remember that we in the North were great fighters—

Mr. Speaker: May I remind the hon. Lady that I come from the North myself, but on the Third Reading of a Bill even Northcountry people must speak to what is in the Bill.

Dame Irene Ward: As I say there is a facade surrounding the Bill so far as Tyneside is concerned. It is difficult to talk about it within the rules of order, but nevertheless the facade is there. All

I want to say is that we are very delighted that at least some action has been taken to relieve those living on small fixed incomes and on low incomes. However much the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East may attack me, I have been consistent in fighting for those living on small fixed incomes—indeed I think we have something in common there. I am naturally pleased that some action has been taken, but a great deal more is needed. I noticed in tonight's paper—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There may be a great deal more that has to be done, but it is not in this Bill and it cannot be discussed in this debate.

Dame Irene Ward: I will not detain the House any longer except to say "Thank you" for the parts of the Bill that I like and for the parts of it which my constituents seem to like. I do not give any thanks on behalf of the marginal people. I have already been told that the administrative costs will be pretty high. We have already had in Whitley Bay to upgrade some of our staff to deal with these problems. The problem of dealing with the people who will get the rebate is far more complicated than the problem of the people for whom we wanted to get certain extra reliefs which was turned down partly because of the administrative difficulty. The administrative difficulty is nothing compared with what will have to be done by the very fine administrative staff we have. But we must have extra staff.
I cannot help feeling that, although I welcome the Bill, it would have been a much better way of dealing with this problem if we had been able to take a substantial portion of the education rate off the ratepayers and put it on to the Treasury.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is right outside the Bill now.

Dame Irene Ward: That may well be so, but everybody else has been right outside the Bill. I am a very keen listener and I have heard many people make these points. It did not seem to me that I could be out of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is usually very fair. Even if other hon. Members were out of order, that is no justification for her being out of order.

Dame Irene Ward: I fully accept that, Mr. Speaker, but sometimes there is a terrible temptation to be led, especially when so many people were fortunate in getting away with it.
I know that the Bill will be passed. It will bring great satisfaction and a great deal of happiness to many people who will be relieved of fear. For quite a long time there has been a tremendous build-up of fear among those who are worried about the extent of the increases in their rate burden. The rates have gone up by leaps and bounds since the Government came to power. A frightfully dangerous fear complex was being built up. As I, like all hon. Members, like my constituents to be happy and to have confidence in the future, I think that the Bill will relieve part of their anxiety, and for that I am extremely grateful.
But I do not like being challenged on my views on the Bill as though I had never tried to do anything for those living on small fixed incomes. I do not want to see the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East, returned, but had he been here a little longer he would perhaps have known that this is one of my pet and special subjects. When he takes pleasure, as he will, in making tremendous speeches on Tyneside about the Bill, I ask him to remember that the people know that for very many years, perhaps even before he was born, I have been arguing the case for those living on small fixed incomes.
Therefore, I thank the Government for the small mercies in the Bill, and I hope that I shall live to fight another day.

9.24 p.m.

Mr. Julius Silverman: May I bring the debate from the battle of Newcastle to Birmingham. The citizens of Birmingham will be wholly grateful for the Bill, without any reservation. The authority in Birmingham had a rate rebate scheme before the Bill was introduced which it was financing entirely out of the rates. It felt that the need to deal with this problem for the ratepayer was so acute that it should be dealt with even if the whole burden were borne by the rates.
Ratepayers are, therefore, wholly grateful for the Bill, which introduces a scheme of rebates different in some respects from the Birmingham scheme, but, none the

less, a very good scheme of rebates, which will be financed to the extent of three-quarters by the Exchequer. For this, not only the poorer citizens of Birmingham but all its citizens will be grateful for the Bill, which is a very good Bill indeed.
It has been said that the Bill is rather like the curate's egg—good in parts. I wonder whether the taste which hon. Members opposite are tasting is the taste of an egg or of sour grapes. I wonder what terms of praise they would have used for the Bill had they introduced it themselves. The hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) has talked about her battle for the small fixed income group, but she had to wait for a Labour Government—

Dame Irene Ward: No, no.

Mr. Silverman: —before she could get this scheme. The hon. Lady said that she had been battling for a long time, but it did not get her anywhere—

Dame Irene Ward: Oh, yes, it did.

Mr. Silverman: —until we had a Labour Government to do it.
The Bill transfers from the ratepayer to the Exchequer the sum of £22 million a year in hard cash, and that is a considerable contribution towards the relief of the ratepayer. It is true that it is not a relief to all ratepayers. It is a relief to those ratepayers who need it most. This means that £22 million is going to the ratepayers who need this relief most.
Wherever we draw the line, there must always be some people immediately above it who do not come off too well. That is inevitable, but, unfortunately, a line has to be drawn somewhere. It may be that at a later stage the line may be extended—I hope that it will be when the country's finances allow it—but at present the Bill deals with those who are most in poverty. I say without reservation that this is a good Bill, even though it may be improved upon in future. All the citizens of the country should welcome it, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on what he has done.

9.29 p.m.

Mr. MacColl: This time, I ought to ask for the permission of the House to wind up the debate. I do not always bask in the approval of my hon. Friend


the Member for Birmingham, Aston (Mr. Julius Silverman) and rarely do I bask in the approval of the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward). It has been a happy end to our proceedings. Hon. Members have been united in saying that this is a good and valuable Bill which will do something effective and constructive to help people with low incomes. That is precisely the intention of the Bill.
The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said that the Bill was too blunt an instrument for its purpose. What it has done is to steer its way between two dangers. On the one hand, it has avoided the trap of getting involved in an extremely complicated welfare operation with extremely sensitive, difficult and complicated instruments by which so much time would have been taken in assessing people's needs, but nothing would have happened for a long time.
To get the Bill through and operating quickly and worked by local authorities, the ideas underlying it had to be not too complicated. On the other hand, it must not duck the issue, as the 1964 Act did, by simply producing something which was completely ineffective. The Bill is a workable middle way between those two extremes.
The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames picked out two points on which he thought that the Bill was unfair. One was the question of earning members of households. The right hon. Gentleman's comments were interesting in showing that, even after all our consideration of the Bill and our debate both in Committee and today, he still hankers after the household means test. I still do not think that he understands how effective to check the abatement of recoverable rates is. If a householder has two lodgers, he can only recover rebate on half the rates. That is an effective instrument, yet it is one which avoids all the problems which presented difficulties in the working of the last Act by trying to go into the means of people, who were not members of the family.
The other criticism that he made was that it did too little for single people. There are two respects in which the Bill is aware of the special difficulties of single people. The first is that the income

minimum is proportionately higher for single people than it is for married couples. It is £208 for a single person, compared with £260 for a married couple, and that was done precisely because the Allen Report suggested that it was among single people that the most hardship was to be found. The other point is the power that there is to change the income levels if it is found that they are not working fairly.
The final point that the right hon. Gentleman criticised was the financial basis, and that has been a theme through most of the comments made about the Bill. Listening to the debate, one would get the impression without studying the Bill that it was an attempt to force local authorities to spend money without any grant at all. But the rebate scheme does not increase the amount to be met by local authorities. What it does is redistribute it.
The financial assistance is substantial both in this country and in Scotland. In Scotland, compared with £1 million spread over two years, which is what the 1964 Act offered, the Bill is giving £3 million every year to the Scottish local authorities. So it is an effective contribution, and I should have thought that local authorities would welcome the opportunity that it gives to make their rating system a more human and well-balanced instrument than it could be before. After all, I remember reading that back in history there was a political slogan, "Ninepence for fourpence". This is very much the same kind of thing, because, in return for an expenditure of £7 million, it is possible for the local authorities to have £29 million which they can use for redistributing and meeting the needs of the poorest ratepayers. That is a very substantial help from the Exchequer. It is not a question of extra expenditure. It is a grant towards a fairer redistribution of the rate burden, which I should have thought was something that could have been welcomed.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: When the Parliamentary Secretary says that it is a grant which the local authorities can use towards redistributing the rate burden, would it not be more accurate to say that it is something which they are bound to use to redistribute it in accordance with the provisions imposed by the Government?

Mr. MacColl: Yes, because in 1964 the then Administration left it entirely to them to work. It did not work, and nothing was done. It is essential, if the right hon. Gentleman is to be able to look the hon. Lady the Member for Tyne-mouth in the face in the Division Lobby, that she must be able to know that the money is going to the people with small incomes.

Dame Irene Ward: I can see that it is.

Mr. MacColl: It will not be lost. The effectiveness of the Bill rests in the fact that it gives a clear and decisive lead to local authorities to make their system of rates more effective; yet, at the same time, it puts the large majority of the cost on Exchequer funds.
I do not think that I need go into a detailed analysis of the other points which have been made, because I think that they have all turned on substantially the same argument. To suggest that because rates are going up and because they are a burden that is a reason for not introducing the Bill, which is what one hon. Gentleman opposite said, seems a most extraordinary argument. It is because rates are going up, because they are such a burden, that the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) said that they were the most disliked sector of the taxation system. He did not go on to say that they had been so disliked for so many years without anything being done about them. At last something is going to be done. Some help is going to be given to people who most need the help, and therefore I think the House should welcome the Bill in a most warm and cordial way.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.

Motion made and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

9.37 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I should like to ask the Solicitor-General to correct something that he said on Second Reading. He assured the House on that occasion that the Bill involved no change whatever in substantive law. He asserted that the Joint Committee had
certified that the Bill does not represent any change whatever in the law. It is purely a consolidation Measure."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th February, 1966; Vol. 724, c. 1665.]
If that goes on the record as being an authoritative statement about Statute Law Revision Bills, I think that in future the House may be precluded even from asking for an explanation of the contents of such a Bill. A Statute Law Revision Bill does alter the law. It is not merely a consolidation Measure, and perhaps I might use an example from the Schedule to the Bill. There was a certain amount of comment in the Joint Committee on the first enactment referred to under the heading "Transport Repeals". It concerns the repeal of Section 31 of the London Hackney Carriages Act, 1843. This is the Section which provided that
Nothing…shall be deemed or construed to authorise any hackney carriage to stand or ply for hire opposite to the General Post Office in Saint Martins le Grand….
That provision is to be repealed because it is obsolete, and not because it is no longer law. It is not put into operation. It has been certified by the Joint Committee as being obsolete and unnecessary, and quite correctly so. But it would be wrong to say that this is not a change in the law, and that it is merely a matter of consolidation.
If a Statute Law Revision Bill is treated merely as a consolidation Measure the House will be precluded even from asking for an explanation of its contents. If, however, we recognise that such a Bill alters the law, having been told via the Joint Committee what laws are obsolete, spent, unnecessary or superseded, we are able to ask for an explanation


of the contents. The Bill may repeal some Section which the House would think ought not to be repealed, and to that extent the House might reject the Bill altogether. Unless we can ask for an explanation of such a Bill we are put to great inconvenience in trying to discover what it contains.
When the Bill was published in another place it had an Explanatory Memorandum on the front of it. That was very helpful. It was possible to read through it and to find what the Bill was about, and what Statutes were to be repealed. Unfortunately, when the Bill was published in this House it did not have that Explanatory Memorandum, so we had to seek out the print of the Bill in the other place and read it through to find out what we wanted to know.
I therefore ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to correct what he said in the Second Reading debate, and to confirm that his view of a Statute Law Revision Bill is that it repeals obsolete, spent, and unnecessary provisions, and in doing so necessarily alters the law.

9.42 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Dingle Foot): The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) is quite entitled to draw a distinction between a Statute Law Revision Bill and a consolidation Bill pure and simple, such as that we are about to consider. But I submit that this is a distinction without a difference. The effect of the Report of the Joint Committee on the Statute Law Revision Bill is that it makes no difference whatever in substantive law. The Committee said:
The Committee have considered the…Bill….The Bill is confined to the repeal of obsolete, spent, unnecessary or superseded enactments and there is no point to which they think that the attention of Parliament should be drawn.
That means that it is not making any change in the law as it affects anybody. There was a long Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill as published in another place, which said:
The only unrepealed provision of the Appropriation Act 1870 sets out certain conditions for the receipt of half-pay. The system of half-pay to which the provision was originally relevant (e.g. for ' reduced' officers) has long disappeared; and the provision is spent

Further down, we are told that the Pensions (Commutation) Act, 1876, contains an exception from the Pensions (Commutation) Act, 1870, in favour of officers who had held "saleable commissions". The sale of commissions was ended in 1871 and nobody is alive to whom the 1876 Act could apply. Then there is the particular provision to which the hon. Gentleman drew attention—Section 31 of the London Hackney Carriages Act, 1843, which provides that nothing in that or any other Act shall be deemed to authorise any hackney carriage to stand or ply for hire opposite the General Post Office in St. Martin's le Grand. It is obsolete, and the Postmaster-General agrees to its repeal.
Therefore, we are dealing throughout with Acts which are still on the Statute Book, but none of which can have any application to anyone whatsoever—

Mr. Graham Page: If, for example, the right hon. and learned Gentleman decided to take a private prosecution against a taxi-cab plying for hire outside the General Post Office, could the courts really refuse such a prosecution? The law exists. It is right that it should be repealed because it is obsolete, but it is not entirely an academic argument.

The Solicitor-General: I am saying that here is a law which has long ceased to affect anyone. What the Joint Committee have done is to deal with this in the same way as they deal with a strict consolidation Bill, and they have reported in the terms which the hon. Gentleman himself quoted. We are merely dealing here with spent and obsolete legislation, and this is being taken out of the Statute Book.
My point, which I made on Second Reading also, is perfectly valid, I submit—that when we are dealing with a substantive law—a law actually in operation and which has an effect on some one or other—this Bill makes not the slightest difference. That is the issue which was canvassed by the Joint Committee. They were perfectly satisfied and they therefore reported to the House in the sense that they did. The hon. Member for Crosby says that if we did not draw a distinction between Statute Law Revision and a consolidation Bill in one


way or another, the House may be prevented from questioning any of the provisions; in any of these Bills.
I am sure that the House will never be precluded from examining these Bills as long as we have the good fortune of having the hon. Member for Crosby with us.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

Orders of the Day — MINES (WORKING FACILITIES AND SUPPORT) BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

Orders of the Day — RENT ACT, 1965

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]

9.49 p.m.

Mr. Frank Allaun: The Minister of Housing, with the assistance of his officials, has been good enough to let me see a summary of all the rent cases which have so far been submitted to the rent officers, and this summary shows that 4,422 applications, all in Greater London, have been made up to 19th February. Of these, 363 have already been determined; 262 have resulted in rent reductions—62 in rent increases and 39 in no change.
So far so good. But of even greater interest and importance are the amounts by which the rents have been reduced. I have been doing my own survey and have spent several days recently on the telephone with rent officers in many boroughs throughout the area. This survey shows quite exciting results of the application of the Rent Act, 1965. These early figures are significant, since they have been fixed with particular care, and will probably set the pattern for hundreds of thousands of cases in the near future. Just as the declarations of the first results in a General Election are watched with particular interest, because they indicate what will follow, I think that the declaration of these first results of the Rent Act should be watched with equal interest.
Outside London the rent officers have not yet reached any decisions. In some areas, indeed, they have still to be appointed. Since existing rents are so much lower in the Provinces—and rightly so—than in the Metropolis, it is reasonable to expect that when they do get to work the new rents fixed in the constituencies of many of my hon. Friends outside London will similarly be far less than the new rents fixed in London.
Here are some typical rent reductions agreed to by the landlord and tenant concerned, and registered by the rent officer, which means that they hold good for the next three years. I understand that only a handful—possibly the Minister will be able to give the figure—have been sent to the rent assessment committees owing to the failure of the landlord and tenant to agree. I am told by rent officers that many landlords are proving co-operative. Sometimes the landlord concedes right away and amicable agreements are being reached. All of this suggests that the landlords themselves do not think that the reductions are unreasonable, or, otherwise, a much higher proportion would have been taken to the rent assessment committees.
In area A, a famous East End borough I do not want to mention names, because that would involve the rent officers concerned—a typical dwelling is the half house. This is one in a long row of terrace houses, mostly shared by two families, with three rooms and a kitchen downstairs and three rooms and a kitchen upstairs, but with no bath and with a shared W.C. at the bottom of the yard. I think that my right hon. Friend the Minister knows the cases very well. In these cases some tenants who were paying 5 guineas a week, including 9s. rates, have had the rents cut to £2 3s. a week, inclusive of rates. That is a decrease of £3 2s. a week. These are actual figures; I am not speaking off the cuff.
Whilst these families will, I am sure, welcome these cuts and indeed bless the name of the Minister of Housing and the Rent Act, 1965, I think we should pause before throwing our hats too high in the air. For the controlled rent of such dwellings, which is still being paid by thousands of families, and, indeed, was being paid in these very dwellings till the Tory 1957 Rent Act hit them with


"creeping decontrol", because of a change of tenant, is only £1 3s. inclusive.
This, I think, is all that they are intrinsically worth. It is mainly the great demand for housing which has enhanced their value, even though the rent officers, in accordance with the Act, have tried to ignore this factor. As a result, a rent far above the previous controlled rent has been registered. In this same borough, one house has been reduced from £5 14s. a week inclusive to £2 3s. inclusive, a reduction of £3 11s.—something certainly not to be sneezed at.
In area B, in Inner London, where about 30 cases have so far been registered—that is to say, settled—the rent officer has summarised the reductions. The average rent reduction is 33 per cent. of the previous rent. Here there are two predominant types of house. First, there are the tenement blocks, 100 years or more old, with draughty, exposed staircases, two rooms, a shared sink and a W.C. on the landing serving four flats. The rent of one of these typical dwellings has just been reduced from £2 13s. 10d., including 8s. rates, to £1 13s. inclusive. Once again, however, it should be stressed that the controlled rent was only £1 0s. 3d. inclusive.
The second predominant type in this great working-class area is that of terrace houses, which are, again, anything up to 100 years old, with a basement and one, two or three floors. The houses today are nearly all multi-family, let off in four separate homes. In one case, the rent for four rooms—two of them unusually small—with a water heater in the kitchen and a shared w.c, has been reduced from £4 10s. plus rates, to £3 plus rates. The controlled rent was £1 5s.
In another dwelling of three rooms, kitchen, a shared w.c., and bath in the kitchen, agreement has been reached on a rent reduced from £4 4s. 10d. plus rates, to £1 17s. 6d. plus rates—a pretty valuable reduction. However, the former controlled rent was only 17s. 3d. plus rates. In area C, in which it happens that I have digs, and again in Inner London, the flats are more recently built. One built in 1930, with three rooms and toilet has been reduced from £6 plus rates to £4 5s. plus rates.
In area D—this is East London again—for a typical two-roomed flat, plus own bath and w.c., for which the tenant was paying £3 10s. 3d. plus 12s. 4d. rates, the rent has been registered by agreement at £2 7s. 8d. plus rates. The controlled rent was £1 3s. plus rates.
In another part of the borough where the houses are mostly occupied by three families, each living in two rooms, the rent officer gave me examples of £1 15s. on one flat and 19s. 5d. on another. He said that the average was a decrease of about £1 a week. He had just recently registered a rent for each of ten identical homes—each of two rooms of very poor type, without bathroom, and lavatory shared. The landlord charged £4 5s. a week, including 5s. a week rates. The new rent registered for each of these ten houses in £2 5s. including rates. The controlled rent was £1 11s. inclusive.
There is so much I want to say that I will forbear from giving examples of typical rents fixed in other boroughs, but from the figures so far given—and the others bear them out—a general picture begins to emerge. It is a picture of ex-horbitant rents of £4 10s. for old and unsatisfactory homes being roughly halved to £2 5s., and this in turn, being about twice the original controlled rent of £1 5s. Of course I am not suggesting that this formula is the one on which rent officers—

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, the Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[The Attorney-General.]

Mr. Allaun: I was not suggesting that this formula is the one on which rent officers work. I shall come to their methods in a moment. I merely say that this is how things are tending to work out. Naturally there are many exceptions depending on the character, condition and locality of the dwelling. In one two-bed-roomed house of 700 sq. ft.—quite a large one—the landlord had spent £900 on a complete conversion, removing an interior wall, putting in a bath, heater and so on. Here the reduction was only 5s., to a registered rent of £4 5s. In another conversion job where the landlord showed that he had spent £370, a two bedroom


flat with a rateable value of £90, the former rent of £2 12s. 11d. plus rates, became £2 4s. plus rates.
The interesting point is that, so far, tenants have been slow in taking their cases to rent officers. As the Minister told me, only 4,422 in the whole of London have done so. As one rent officer put it, "I am surprised that we have not had a great many more. We have had about 200 in this area up to date and they are keeping us busy. But it is only a small part of the potential number."
I asked him why this was so and he replied, "The same thing happened with the furnished rent tribunals years ago. People are reluctant to come to officials or to do anything that smells of the courts." I repeat this with due respect to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General.

The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): Perhaps they may not realise how sweet the smell can be.

Mr. Allaun: It seems to me that they are getting the sweet results in these cases without going to the courts.
Secondly," the rent officer said, "the public have not got round to it yet. They do not know of their right to get a fair rent. While there has been some national publicity about the Act, most people know little about it." He added, "I think many landlords are forestalling rent officers, going privately to their tenants and offering them rent reductions. I suspect that many tenants who are being offered reductions say to themselves, ' Well maybe, I could get a bit more if I went to the rent officer, but let us accept what is being offered and avoid any trouble.'
Another rent officer stated that he thought that what was holding tenants back was fear of losing security of tenure. I do not need to say that they cannot be evicted without a court order. That is the virtue of the Rent Act, and the court certainly will not evict just because they have referred their case to the rent officer. For others there is the fear of heavy legal costs which is retarding applications. This too is a completely unfounded fear.
My own view is that tenants have been holding back to see what happened.

There may be little doubt that in the next few weeks the news of these rent reductions will spread like wildfire. I am expecting, indeed, hoping, that thousands of families who are paying through the nose for rotten accommodation will bung in their applications right away. My advice to them is to do precisely that. Indeed, this is the main aim of my speech tonight.
The Rent Act is a serious attempt to right some of the injustices created by the Conservative Rent Act, and I hope that full advantage will be taken of the later legislation. However, it seems that a far higher proportion of landlords with a case for a rise have so far applied than have tenants with a case for a cut.
I pay tribute to the rent officers who are carrying out a most difficult job. They are doing it very well. They inspect and measure every house before they fix a rent for it, and I am informed from many sources that they are working assiduously, conscientiously and with great sympathy and understanding.
How are they fixing a fair rent? I gather that several methods are being applied. It is interesting to note that they are being tried simultaneously by the same officers for the same house, and approximately the same figure is being arrived at.
The most common method in some boroughs is to seek the guidance of reputable, old-established firms of professional estate agents in the area. These are sharply to be distinguished from many of the get-rick-quick merchants who rushed into business from the time the earlier Rent Act was passed in 1957. I asked one rent officer if this reliance on estate agents did not mean acceptance of market values, which reflect the tremendous demand for housing compared with the limited supply—whereas the Act lays down that this imbalance is to be ignored in arriving at a fair rent. The officer replied that they were fortunate in his area in having some exceptionally good landlords whose demands were modest and who actually charged rents which were below the market level; in other words, below what they could demand. Although interesting, I would not put too much reliance on that.
Another guide is to look at gross values, increasing them by anything from


between 33 per cent. and 100 per cent. to take account of inflation since 1961, when the preparatory work for the 1963 valuation was done. Another by-product of the operation of the Act is that as well as reducing exorbitant rents it is also, I am glad to say, inducing some landlords to do repairs. For it is now in their interests that they should do them.
I turn briefly to one unfortunate way in which the 1965 Rent Act is working. The second vital objective of the Act was to restore security of tenure. It closed the loophole discovered a year ago in the interim housing Measure, the Protection from Eviction Act, 1964. But I regret to say that some landlords and their lawyers have now discovered two further loopholes, and I wish to propose measures to close both of them.
In a recent London case the police "stood idly by"—to quote a phrase used recently in another connection—while a tenant was evicted, even though this was illegal since the landlord had not secured a court order. I understand that this was based on the advice of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. This must happen, he holds, unless a breach of the peace is likely. The argument for this inaction is that it would be difficult for a policeman to know the rights and wrongs of the case, which is more a matter for the local authority, which should be the enforcing authority.
There is, however, a simple solution to this problem. All that is required is that the policeman should ask to see the court order. If this is not produced immediately and on the spot the eviction should be stopped. It may be felt that this is more a matter for the Home Secretary than the Minister of Housing and Local Government. I am not so sure about that, since the Rent Act could be invalidated unless this action is taken. In any case, I ask the Minister of Housing and Local Government to press the Home Secretary to act on this vital issue without delay.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Gentleman may not propose legislation on the Adjournment.

Sir Barnett Janner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is my hon. Friend asking for

fresh legislation? I understood him to say that the position as it now stands enables authorities to stop this process, but he is not saying that it requires fresh legislation.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I heard the hon. Gentleman say that he had two suggestions which would need legislation, and it seemed to me that he was proceeding to ask for them to be met by legislation.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps it would help if I say that I recall the hon. Gentleman saying that he had discovered two loopholes, and he appeared to be about to suggest ways of stopping them.

Mr. Allaun: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) for his intervention. I was suggesting administrative ways of dealing with this matter without legislative action, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The second case is a very serious one arising in Tower Hamlets. I have told my three hon. Friends, the Labour Members of Parliament for this borough, that I intended to mention this case tonight. After an illegal eviction by a private landlord, the borough council took the landlord to court and he was fined the trivial sum of £20. But this is not the worst feature of the case. The council discovered that there is no power for it to reinstate illegally evicted families, so that these tenants have to look for another home. Surely, this is wrong and quite contrary to the intentions of the Act. Until it is put right, the security of tenure provided for tenants under the Act is in jeopardy. Moreover, unscrupulous property owners could soon make up the cost of the fine by selling the now empty property at the current high market value.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It does not seem to me that what the hon. Gentleman is now proposing can be done by administrative action. He seems to be proposing a change in the law.

Mr. Allaun: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am asking my right hon. Friend to find some administrative means of correcting this evil and to do it immediately. I want him to find a way of ensuring that a tenant illegally evicted can be reinstated


in his home. If this is done, landlords will not attempt this trick and the Minister will not have to worry about evicting any newly settled tenants who might innocently go into vacated premises.
At present, there is one recourse open to an evicted tenant, that is, to start a civil action quickly in the county court for breach of contract. He could possibly secure an injunction on the ground that the landlord was a trespasser. But the general public cannot be expected to have great legal knowledge—neither have I, for that matter—so some town clerks feel that the local authority should have the right to take proceedings as a friend of the tenant.
As a not altogether uncritical Member of Parliament who has not always seen eye to eye with the Minister, I conclude by congratulating him on the early operation of this Act, and also on a number of his other Measures which may result in these years being looked on in the future as the golden era of housing reform.

10.13 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: I am very glad that the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) made clear in his interesting speech that there are several loopholes in the Act and that it is not all sweetness and light. I direct the Minister's attention to the fact that the harassment provisions are not being operated properly in certain areas. I have several cases in my constituency in which I have reported to the local council that action ought to be taken. I have in mind one particular case which I raised during the Committee proceedings on the Bill in which stamping goes on upstairs during the night in an attempt to evict the tenants. So far, the council has been unable to take appropriate action.
This is not a recalcitrant council refusing to take an interest. It is Socialist controlled, and one would have imagined that it would have taken action in this case. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members may cheer, but something is lacking somewhere, for action has not come about.
In another case, the gas and electricity were cut off in an attempt to evict the tenant. After great representations by me

something was done, and eventually the electricity was restored. But the gas has not yet been put back again, despite every application by the council. The council took the case to court, but it was thrown out by the magistrates and the tenants are still living in beleaguered circumstances.
These are important matters—in some respects more important—than the cases the hon. Member referred to which are going through the rent officers. I am glad to hear that in certain cases very good adjustments are being made in rents. I am sure that the Minister will agree with the fact that not many applications have arisen so far shows that the problem was not quite as great as the party opposite made it out to be. I supported the Act and would speak in its favour again. But it is not entirely a good Act. It needs certain amendments to improve it, and when we are returned to office at the coming election we shall, I am sure, make them.

10.16 p.m.

Sir Barnett Janner: I want to emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) concerning the question of how the Rent Act is being brought to the notice of the public. The public do not know in the main that the Act gives security and provides for rents to be reasonably adjusted. People do not realise that the shocking conditions created by the Tory Rent Act of 1957 are now to some extent being put right.
Strong measures should be taken to get the local authorities to publicise the provisions of the new Act as speedily as possible. This is at the root of the complaint made by my hon. Friend. The people themselves must get to know what is available to them—that the insecurity which threatened their lives and homes because of the inability of the previous Government to understand that they were wrecking them—has now been remedied not entirely but to some extent by this very intelligent and very understanding Government.

10.18 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Richard Grossman): I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun)


for choosing this subject and for the extremely interesting information that he has given me about my Department. Although we have made an initial survey of the cases, he has done a piece of individual detective work in getting on to the rent officers, and this also shows that they are approachable and only too anxious to let people know what is going on.
I want to say something first about the difficulty raised by harassment. In dealing with this part of the Act when it was going through the House, we were all aware of the importance of trying to create a deterrent and certainly the creation of the deterrent was a great deal easier than the creation of a means of getting people back into homes from which they had already been thrown out.
Hon. Members will recall that we discussed this at some length and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will agree that the problem of restitution after the action had been brought partially defeated us on this as on many other crimes. This is not the only crime where it is more difficult to get restitution than to get the criminal prosecuted.
We had a careful analysis made of the cases in Tower Hamlets. The borough is to be commended for its activity. In one case—the one advertised at the beginning—there was no success and the tenant, having been thrown out, did not attempt to return, and he is still away.
But there are two other cases in which, with the active assistance of the local authority, the tenant was successfully put back despite the landlord. I am glad to say that there is another case in which the local authority is already proceeding against the landlord. Apparently, it has the power to do so—at least, I think that it has—and the hearing has not yet taken place. Thus, in those five cases, although one has been a complete failure, in no other is there complete failure yet.

Mr. Julius Silverman: Is it not a fact that if a regulated tenant is evicted, he has a complete right to restitution?

Mr. Crossman: I was coming to that very point. As we all know, there is a sharp distinction between the position of a tenant and that of a licensee who is

not a tenant and whom we were giving basic rights for the first time. The licensee is in a far weaker position than the tenant. That was one of the mistakes my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East made when he spoke about the weak position of the tenant. The tenant has a relatively decent position. The problem is to get the licensee protection once he has been thrown out. This is something we have to consider.
The second thing I did immediately I saw the cutting about the problem of the police was to have a long talk with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and his staff about collaboration between my Ministry and his. This is now going on and we have agreed that the police on the beat must have clearly explained to them the nature of the new crime of harassment and exactly what they must do. They are now being given careful instructions. By the way, this is not an easy crime to detect, because the police have to have some sense about whether, when a gramophone is being played, it is being played for the purpose of harassment or the purpose of genuine entertainment. The policeman has to take a certain judicious view about these things, because we do not want our policemen to be busybodies and to interrupt our entertainment. It is not all that easy to give precise instructions to the policeman on the beat.
But what is clear—and I think that my right hon. Friend would agree—is that the policeman must certainly be prepared when he hears an accusation that the crime is being committed, when the tenant complaints, to show himself ready to take a full note of the circumstances, to report them and to be there. It is already a major deterrent if he takes that kind of action. We have not yet got quite clear the exact form of collaboration, but it will no doubt come out of the process of trial and error.
I now turn from the subject of Tower Hamlets and eviction to the other matter which my hon. Friend raised, which was the progress of the rent officers and the rent assessment committees. As he said, the initial figures are quite interesting. There have been 363 cases decided by rent officers, 262 putting the rent down, 62 putting the rent up and 39 leaving the rent unchanged. My hon. Friend gave us some very interesting and encouraging


examples of rent and, as he said and as I know, they are notable because we all knew perfectly well that some outrageous rents were being charged.
But it is most important that we should not draw a general picture of what is happening in London from 363 cases. I am not sure that we should talk about general pictures at all. The great thing which our rent officers are getting into their minds is that every case is an individual case and they are judging each absolutely strictly on its merits. The whole point of how they have been taught to do their job is that they should not make generalisations, but should in each case study the facts in detail.
I have received from Sir Sidney Little-wood, the President of the London Rent Assessment Committee, some specimens which he obtained from the rent officers of the actual files which they are using and which show the work which they are doing. They are still confidential, but I am immensely impressed—and I have been showing them to the Attorney-General—by the extraordinary thoroughness and the way in which each individual has been studied in detail in terms of its locality and the measurement and structure of the rooms. For the first time, landlord and tenant must know that there are men whose sole interest is to judge the truth in each case.
I believe that confidence is being established that the rent officers are taking their job very seriously. Before they started I had the privilege of talking to them and discussing things with them. I know that Sir Sidney Littlewood and the rent assessment committees have discussed the problems of the Act. They have had the passages from the Committee stage discussions, because we gave no kind of instructions. We always said that the only instructions we would give would be what we said in our speeches. When they have read them they will have the general picture. They have to fill in that picture themselves and work out their definition of scarcity, each man trying on his own at first.
This is another reason why we should be careful of talking about a general picture. Although there are encouraging results in a large number of cases, there are 28 cases in which there has been appeal against the decision, and the critical moment for the definition will

come when precedents are set by the rent assessment committees.

Mr. Graham Page: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication of when those are likely to come through?

Mr. Crossman: I was going to do so. The first thing that I would emphasise is that the rent officers are taking longer at first with each individual case than we anticipated. My hon. Friends have spoken of publicity. We have cinema vans going around, but we have about 4,000 cases and they are being dealt with at the rate of about 80 a week. The cases are, therefore, coming in from the public much faster than they are being processed. This is because in the early stages the rent officer is taking much longer over a case than he will do when matters have become more clearly established and when the rent assessment committees have made their definitive judgments.
The first hearings will take place in London. There are 19 hearings which will start in mid-March. The reason for this is because of the very careful consideration which the rent assessment committees are giving to cases. The hearing will be at least a month after the papers have passed from the rent officer to the committee. The two sides have to be informed and time allowed to bring them together.
We hope that in mid-March the first rent assessment committee cases will be heard in London. In the Midlands we have had our first week in Birmingham and Coventry and have had a much smaller response, as we knew we would, compared to London. There were only 91 cases in the whole of the West Midlands. This figure is expected to increase a great deal.
The last thing I want to say is that I cannot help reflecting with a certain pride about the doubts cast from the other side in committee after committee on the possibility of ever getting rent officers who could do this job. I was told that unless they were professional valuers they could not sit down and tackle this job. The striking figure, from which we can draw our own conclusions, is that of 360 cases decided only 28 have been appealed. That means that the rent officer has achieved a genuine decision in all of those cases remaining. Both sides have thought


him an honest man who had done a job well.
That is enormously encouraging. Imagine that we had not had the rent officers and there were 4,000 cases in London to go before tribunals, each to be fought, without any rent officer. The whole thing would be blocked up. It was only by creating the conciliation officer at a lower level, to process the job, that the position of the appeal tribunal is practical at all. On this side of the House we can say with great pride that here was the most original thing in the Act—that we could get the right people, that town clerks would have the sense to appoint the right kind of people to do the job. No doubt we shall have failures, and in some regions people will be better than others. But at least in the first part of its life in London with 300,000 potential cases to deal with, we

now know that we have the right kind of men, with integrity, which is an enormous hope for the future, and for enabling us to end the cold war and to take rents out of politics so that they can be settled in a matter of fact, business-like way which would end this miserable business.
Let us not think only of those rents which have been put down. There were some sensational examples also of rents going up. It is, of course, possible to have cases where landlords have not been given a fair rent. The most important thing which is now happening is that landlords and tenants are being convinced that they will get justice from rent officers, even although the justice may not always commend itself to one side.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.